Grief hooks the young in a special way

Visitors pay their respects to victims of the Itaewon crowd surge at a memorial in Seoul Plaza in Jung District, central Seoul on Wednesday. [YONHAP]

Isabelle Pia Sison came to Korea from the Philippines in 2013 to study for a bachelor’s degree. One year later, the tragic sinking of the Sewol ferry took the lives of 304 people, mostly high school students.

Sison completed her undergraduate studies and went home, but returned to Korea earlier this year to pursue a master’s.

Then the Itaewon tragedy happened, claiming at least 156 lives, many people in their 20s.

In the five years that Sison has lived in Korea, the 27-year-old witnessed two of the nation’s worst peacetime disasters, both claiming very young victims.

Sison says she’s having a hard time processing what happened last Saturday night.

“The memory of waking up with numerous phone calls and messages from friends and families in Korea and back at home,” she said, “together with the heartbreaking news and videos from the incident still gives me a heavy heart.”

Sison says she fears not being able to feel safe again.

“It made me realize that from now on, we will always feel anxious and maybe never feel that safe ever again in Korea,” she said. “We usually go to crowded places, especially when there are events and parties.”

For years, bars and clubs in Itaewon – known for its foreign restaurants, cosmopolitan atmosphere and nightlife due to its proximity to a U.S. military base – have attracted young revelers on Halloween.

Among 156 people who died in the Itaewon crowd crush, nearly three-quarters were under the age of 30 and 26 were foreigners, including exchange students who were studying in Korea for a semester or year.

Like Sison, many people who lost a friend or a friend’s friend in the Itaewon tragedy are the same people who grew up watching the news about the Sewol ferry accident and empathizing with the deceased high school student victims, who were on a class trip to Jeju Island. Like the victims, they too were teens.

Experts warn that traumatic events like the sinking of the Sewol and Itaewon crowd crush can have lasting effects on younger people who think that it could have been them who died.

“I do not have direct connection with anyone who passed away but some of my friends were close friends of a few of the foreign victims,” said Sison.

“I can’t help but feel extra anxious thinking that we had also been planning to join the Halloween parties in Itaewon that day,” she continued.

“It could’ve been me or my friends.”

Many universities in Seoul have started offering counseling sessions or opened temporary memorials on their campuses for students to express their condolences.

Hanyang University, where two American exchange students died, released a notice earlier this week informing international students about psychological counseling for anyone going through depression, anxiety, guilt or despair.

Yonsei University, Korea University and Ewha Womans University are offering similar programs.

Hanyang University, Korea University, Chung-Ang University, Sogang University, Dongguk University and Sungkyunkwan University have set up memorials.

“I don’t personally know any of the victims but I feel like it could’ve been me who died,” said 26-year-old Park, a graduate school student who visited a memorial site in Sinchon, western Seoul.

“I called all my friends that night just to make sure they were safe,” he said. “A lot of people my age died in the Sewol sinking. It’s painful that we’re going through another tragedy just eight years later.”

Kwon Dae-min, who visited the memorial site at Hanyang University in eastern Seoul, said he had a lot of friends who were struggling with grief.

“My friends were there on the scene and they witnessed what happened,” said Kwon. “They’re still shedding tears and can’t eat well, which breaks my heart.”

Sison said the atmosphere on her campus at Korea University has become depressing.

“When we had our first school day after the incident on Monday […] most people were quiet, and when we had small talk, we ended up talking about the incident with teary eyes,” she said.

“You could see students crying at any point of the day. Some students skipped classes due to mental stress.”

Paik Jong-woo, head of the Korean Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, urged the government to devise a mental support system for some 10,000 people who were directly or indirectly affected by the Itaewon crowd crush, saying that trauma can lead to lost-lasting effects if not treated right away.

BY LEE SUNG-EUN, KIM NAM-YOUNG [lee.sungeun@joongang.co.kr]