I have a few thoughts about this that are nothing more than thoughts. I'm still on the fence about whether or not Rebecca committed suicide, although I have begun leaning towards her death being suicide the more that I read here.
Anyway, I actually have heard about quite a few naked suicides committed by women in Korea. My husband and I used to travel to Korea, China, and Japan quite a bit and you'd be surprised at the rate of suicides that happen throughout Asia. Women commit suicide just as much or little bit more, in fact, than men do in those regions. Almost all of the deaths are hanging, slashing the wrists in the tub, or leaping to their deaths, in the nude. Some of those suicides have had bindings.
I remember being in Korea when one woman was reported to have been found nude and bound, hanging to her death. My husband and I obviously assumed it had been murder, but our host told us that bound suicides were not unsual. Apparently, slip knots can be used so that hands and feet can maneuver just fine until the person leaps to his/her death. Up until that point, I had been very naive about suicides. I still am, to some degree.
I think we have to caution against judging Rebecca by our standards, because it should be noted that she was born in another country and didn't come to the US til she was an adult. What we might think a woman might never do, might be quite common in Rebecca's culture or mindset.
So I do believe Rebecca had the personal make-up for suicide, and that she very well could have killed herself in the manner that has been claimed. However, just because something's possible doesn't mean it actually happened, and I'm reserving judgement til more information becomes available.
Greetings fellow websleuths!
With all due respect, Rebecca was of Burmese background, not Korean. They're completely different countries, cultures, languages, histories and specific stressors and even differences amongst generations in group identification or shared "group-think" concepts with regards to things like marriage and sexuality so loosely inferred from this case.
While it's true contemporary Korea has staggeringly high rate of suicide and poor mental health resources amongst OECD countries, it's only useful for us to infer data pertaining to Korea for Rebecca, if she too was under similar stressors of surviving in ultra-competitive society due to drastic postwar modernization, that led to erosion of traditional gender roles and creating new conflicts between expectation and aspiration, stigmatization of mental illnesses, hyper-internet connectivity (something like 80%+ of all Korea) that creates an all-pervasive, instant gossip network to judge and spread libel of lethal consequences, etc. There are also economic stressors for all income brackets, utter lack of resources and legal deterrents for domestic violence, violence against women and children that altogether feed into further cycles of mental breakdown.
So before applying "data" of suicide in Korea to this case, we need to ask: Did Rebecca have these similar stressors of Korean society in her life as Burmese-American? How traditionally Burmese was Rebecca? How much of her traditional Burmese values were augmented and changed by her rather multi-cultural, hyphenated experiences in her short 32 years: influences from studying in Austria, living and working in America over a decade? Are her resources to alleviate presumed mental state, as limited as those in Korea? Did her choice of non-Burmese partners, indicate she was more "Westernized" and thus shared similar attitudes and sensbilities with Nalepa and Schacknai, than she would with a Burmese man to "uphold" traditional Burmese values?
And if we pursue this "looks Asian, must do as *most* Asians" to its extreme logic, then a common factor of suicide in "(monolithic) Asian" women is protesting against their unjust dishonor sealed by those wielding power over them (usually elders and men in higher status, Confucian insitutions of the family clan, law, marriage etc.) Are we then to assume that she was declaring her innocence of Max's accident and death, using death to clear her name with a powerful family against whose suffocation (in assuming the "traditional Asian context") she was ultimately helpless?
I suggest it's more enlightening to actually conduct a psychological profile of Rebecca
unique to her circumstances - i.e. interview her long-time acquaintances, tracing her actual personal history of very diverse global footprint, that is influenced and shaped by various experiences of schooling, working, socializing in various countries over a decade. For example, would Schacknai in his role as divorcé, father, and man of worldly success, consider proposing to a partner who's more staunch traditionalist of a cultural background "inscrutable" to both himself and his children, or one who's relatively assimilated and cosmopolitan in steps to create a step-family together?
