In Hong Seung-hee’s Suicide Diaries*, I read about her thoughts on free death. In the same way the Korean word for menopause should not be ‘menstrual shutdown’ but ‘menstrual completion’, she thought that the word ‘suicide’ should be replaced with ‘free death’, a linguistic idea that made an impression on me. There are so many words with highly negative meanings, textures and impressions: abortion, menopause, suicide and so on.
