South Korea is known as a country controlled by chaebols, and it is no exaggeration to describe South Korea's big chaebols as "doing whatever they want". Over the years, South Korea's big chaebols have been exposed to countless scandals, but in the end, almost all the perpetrators are "safe and sound" and do not need to be punished by the law at all, and it seems that only the victims pay the price in the end.
For example, a female star in South Korea who looks glamorous on the surface is actually persecuted and controlled by the South Korean chaebol, she was forced to sleep with more than 30 high-level executives hundreds of times, and even had to accompany guests on her father's death day, and finally she was humiliated and hanged herself after leaving a suicide note, hoping to exchange for justice. Unfortunately, more than a decade later, almost no one is accountable for this.
· Zhang Ziyan, who fell to the bottom
In recent years, there have been many scandals exposed in the Korean entertainment industry, but few have been punished, because the people involved in these scandals are not the Korean chaebols themselves, they are inextricably linked to them, and no one seems to be able to fight for justice for the victims in this country controlled by the chaebols.
For example, Zhang Ziyan, who is known as one of the worst women in South Korea, used her life to expose her abuse by the South Korean chaebol in 2009, but even if hundreds of thousands of people jointly requested and the South Korean president ordered an investigation, it could not shake the South Korean chaebol in the slightest.
Born in 1980 in a wealthy family in South Korea, Zhang Ziyan was smart and beautiful since she was a child, and her parents had already planned for her future: she studied hard and directly "invested" her in business activities after graduation. Originally, this was supposed to be the "perfect life" of an eldest lady, but when Zhang Ziyan was 16 years old, her parents died in a car accident, which completely changed her fate.
On the one hand, it is reported that after her parents' accident, Zhang Ziyan's relatives coaxed and deceived her parents into dividing up the property left by her parents, causing Zhang Ziyan and her brother and sister to almost live on the streets. This made the three of them completely lose their good life, and if it weren't for the three of them supporting and encouraging each other, I am afraid they would not have survived this difficult time.
On the other hand, Zhang Ziyan has never been able to get out of the pain of the death of her parents, although she still studied hard, was admitted to Gwangju University in South Korea majored in economics and completed her undergraduate studies, in the graduate level, Zhang Ziyan was admitted to Chosun University Journalism and Broadcasting Major, but the death of her parents has always been a mental blow to her, which also has an important impact on her life since then.
When she was in graduate school, Zhang Ziyan was favored by talent scouts because of her excellent appearance and invited her to enter the showbiz. Zhang Ziyan has always been hesitant about this matter, after all, she wants to engage in business activities according to the path arranged for her by her parents, but she thinks that it is faster to make money in the entertainment industry, and it may be easier to realize her ideals.
Before deciding to enter the showbiz, Zhang Ziyan consulted many friends, and even sought the help of "metaphysics", and found several metaphysical halls to "fortune telling".
Undoubtedly, it was a decision she would regret for the rest of her life.
· Forced to sleep with him hundreds of times, the world is already purgatory
In 2005, Zhang Ziyan participated in a MV, which was her first work on public sale, but the work that really attracted her public attention was the 2006 "Lego Biscuit" advertisement, after which, Zhang Ziyan officially entered the showbiz and began to appear in TV series.
The TV series that really made Zhang Ziyan popular was the Korean version of "Meteor Garden" - "Boys Over Flowers", when Zhang Ziyan played Park Sun-ja in the Gang of Evil Women, although this role is a villain, her outstanding performance still made her attract the attention of the audience and was invited to attend the Korean Baeksang Awards ceremony.
"Boys Over Flowers" premiered in January 2009, and Zhang Ziyan seemed to have just emerged at that time, facing a bright future, but in March of that year, Zhang Ziyan left a suicide note and hanged herself.
According to South Korean media reports, Ms. Zhang wrote more than 200 pages of tens of thousands of words in a suicide note detailing her experience of being forced to sleep with senior executives of South Korean large companies and news media from 2005 to 2009.
According to Zhang Ziyan's suicide note, in three years, she was forced to provide "sexual entertainment" hundreds of times for 31 South Korean high-level executives, and even on the death day of her parents, she would be forced to "sleep with", and if she did not comply, she would be beaten up. And if she behaves "not engaged enough", she will be poured with various "fun" drugs to "strengthen" her response and make the "guests" more enjoyable.
At the beginning, Zhang Ziyan also resisted, but what she didn't expect was that she had already "entered the game" when she entered the brokerage company and signed the brokerage contract, at that time, she was deceived into signing a contract with liquidated damages of up to 1 billion won, and if Zhang Ziyan wanted to terminate the contract, she must compensate the brokerage company.
Zhang Ziyan, whose parents died and had just become popular, couldn't come up with so much money at all, so she could only be forced to enter the VIP private room exclusive to the "guests", where she was humiliated for a long time.
In order to better serve these "guests", the brokerage company specially converted the third floor into a VIP private room, where it is very private, with a variety of anti-eavesdropping and candid facilities and equipment, as well as doping, wine bottles, golf balls, etc., all kinds of "entertainment props" needed by guests, and Zhang Ziyan has to be "on call", even if she is filming, as long as she receives a call from the brokerage company, she must immediately put down her work and go to the "VIP private room" to provide services.
Zhang Ziyan once mentioned that whenever her agent brought her new clothes, she trembled with fright, because it meant that she was going to "accompany new customers" again, and she wrote in her book that she "felt miserable and wanted to die". The most excessive time, when Zhang Ziyan entered the private room, she saw 4 "guests" waiting for her, which made her feel that she was not even as good as the hotel lady. That time, Zhang Ziyan was tortured to the point of incontinence and couldn't walk.
But this still did not make the company "satisfied", because Zhang Ziyan had been forced to provide "sexual entertainment" and had multiple abortions, which made the brokerage company feel "risky", so she forced her to undergo "sterilization", just to facilitate the chaebols to do whatever they wanted.
Zhang Ziyan was so tormented that she called the police, but the police didn't take this matter seriously at all, either they left without making a record, or they asked her to "describe the process of being played with in detail", which is simply another kind of molestion and abuse.
Eventually, Zhang Ziyan committed suicide in despair in March 2009, and in her suicide note, she listed a list of guests who had slept with her, including the president of the Lotte Group, and the president and father and son had tortured Zhang Ziyan at the same time; Bang Xiangwu, the son of President Bang Xiangxun, the largest newspaper group in South Korea; Well-known journalist Zhao and so on, all of them are "powerful" in South Korea.
Zhang Ziyan finally cried that even if I die, you have to avenge me, but more than ten years have passed, and this wish has not been realized.
· Justice that can't be waited for
After Zhang Ziyan's suicide note was exposed, global public opinion was in an uproar. Countless South Koreans took to the streets to petition for an investigation into the case, and in 2019, then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in specifically ordered an investigation into the matter, but the final result can be said that no one is still responsible for this.
Because there is only one witness in Zhang Ziyan's case, it is Zhang Ziyan's younger sister Yin Zhiwu, she once saw Zhang Ziyan molested by Zhao, but the South Korean prosecutor believed that because of Yin Zhiwu's "recent performance", his testimony was doubtful, so Zhao was acquitted.
So far, only the president of Zhang Ziyan's agency and her agent have been found to have violated the law and have been punished by the law, but the heaviest of them has only been sentenced to 1 year in prison, and they have been suspended for 2 years, in addition to 160 hours of social services and a fine of 24 million won (about 140,000 yuan), which is simply "painless" for them.
In addition to them, all the high-ranking elites in South Korea are safe and sound, and South Korean prosecutors also said that Zhang Ziyan's suicide note was forged and could not be used to "convict".
In addition, there is also a theory that what Zhang Ziyan wrote was not actually a suicide note. Some South Korean media reported that at that time, South Korean artist Lee Mi-sook was fighting a lawsuit with the agency, and in order to win the lawsuit, Lee Mi-sook asked Zhang Ziyan to provide a list of "forced to engage in improper behavior", and promised to help terminate the contract.
Zhang Ziyan was anxious to escape from the tiger's mouth, so she provided the list, but Li Meishu threatened the company with the list, and after the successful termination of the contract, she didn't care about Zhang Ziyan's life or death.
After learning of this, Zhang Ziyan committed suicide in despair within two hours. In order to cover up the matter, Lee Mi-sook "disguised" the list as a suicide note and handed it over to the media 2 years later.
Because according to the recording exposed by South Korean TV, Zhang Ziyan said before committing suicide that "Boss Kim will kill me", and she showed great fear of this, perhaps because of this, Zhang Ziyan committed suicide in despair and made the last resistance.
But no matter why Zhang Ziyan committed suicide, it can't change the fact that she has been violated and inhumanely abused, nor can it change the fact that the South Korean chaebol is single-handed.
Now, more than ten years have passed since Zhang Ziyan's suicide, and she still hasn't been able to wait for the justice she deserves. The person who harmed her is still at large and lives a free life, and recently, the South Korean media exposed a photo of Song Joong Ki and Fang Zhengwu, who once violated Zhang Ziyan, and they didn't care about Zhang Ziyan at all.
The recent good news in Ms. Zhang's case is that Yoon Ji-woo, the only witness in the case, recently won the case, and South Korean courts found it difficult to find her guilty of fraud. Previously, Yoon Ji-woo was sued for fraud for raising donations to fight for justice for Zhang Ziyan, but in the end "it was not over".
It can be seen from the court's judgment that Yoon Ji-woo may not want to speak up for Zhang Ziyan, but that the South Korean chaebol is covering the sky with one hand, and she is really powerless. All this proves the tragic situation of Korean female stars under the control of the chaebol, but it seems that South Korea is powerless to change all this.
Resources:
Forced to sexually entertain 31 people and sleep with her more than 100 times, 10 years after she committed suicide, can she still wait for the truth?
The latest progress of Zhang Ziyan's case! The truth is creepy