Last week, a Finnish man committed suicide by jumping off the apartment building next to ours. In the photo you can see a walkway that goes over a down-ramp into an underground parking area. He fell through the square area made by the walkway and the 3 rows of hedges. It turns out that he and his family lived on the bottom floor of our building but he chose the location next door in order to be discreet…especially considering that there is a playground in front of our building.
Other people we know here knew the family and Lisa remembers seeing them around. It’s really sad to think (but not surprised that) he didn’t have the support in here to address his problems nor the community to recognize that he was having troubles.
Rumor has it that he was having business trouble. I don’t know his specific situation but a lot of companies send people out to China to take advantage of the burgeoning market and they will send one person out to get things started. Without a group of people like yourself, it would be very easy to feel isolated and the pressure to succeed would be quite tremendous. Combine that with a deeper mental illness and it’s not completely surprising to see things happen this way.
We came here to have new experiences and reshape our perception of the world. While this is one of the bad ones, it is another that adds to the fabric of our experience here. Our thoughts go out to his family.
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