Zhang Ziyan wrote in her suicide note: Whenever I put on new clothes, it is the day when I have to entertain new men... This is a nightmare that can never be escaped for a lifetime.
When it comes to the Korean scandal, many people will mention such a poor woman: before she was born, she was a beautiful tool to please the powerful, and the repressive and painful life forced her to end her life early; after her death, she became a tool of struggle between all sides, and her experience of controversy and humiliation made her often mentioned by the public, and she still could not sleep peacefully more than a decade later. She became the ugly scar of Korea forever, her name is Jang Ziyan.
On March 7, 2009, actress Zhang Ziyan committed suicide by hanging her neck at her home in Bundang, Gyeonggi Province, at the age of 29.
Zhang Ziyan is not well-known as an actress, but has only starred in several TV series. The only movie she starred in, "The Elephant on the Top Floor," was a 19-year-old film that was banned from theaters because the trailer was too large-scale and could only be broadcast on the Internet. She plays a woman who wants to become an actress, and in the play, she stages a fiery bed scene in which the character ends in suicide.
Zhang Ziyan in "The Elephant on the Top Floor"
It is worth pointing out that in real life, Zhang Ziyan also committed suicide shortly after the film was released. The film became her last work.
The first judgment of suicide – depression
Zhang Ziyan once had a happy and happy family, her father was the president of a company, and as the youngest daughter in the family, she grew up with no worries about food and clothing, and she was also pampered. But a traffic accident in 1999 took the lives of her parents, and she and her sister have been dependent on each other since. She has had an outstanding body and appearance since she was a child, and she was favored to shoot advertisements and has since stepped into the show business circle.
The shadow of the loss of her parents made her a lonely personality, although she inherited a large amount of inheritance from her parents and did not encounter any financial difficulties, but the mental blow brought about by the sudden departure of her parents has been deeply affecting her, and the pain has not healed for a long time. It is said that she has tried various ways such as raising small animals to forget the blow caused by the unexpected death of her parents, but she has never come out of the psychological shadow.
After stepping into the show business circle, the work pressure was high, and in 2009, she had problems renewing the new contract with the agency, which greatly troubled her spirit and made her suffer from depression. She is said to have had worse symptoms during March 2009 and often shut herself in her house all day without leaving the house.
The unhealed psychological shadow of childhood coupled with the depression under the pressure of work completely overwhelmed her, and the unified tone of the media at that time was "suicide caused by major depression".
More than 50 people, including Gu Hye-sun, Min Young-won, Han Cai-young and singer Kim Ji-hoon, attended the farewell ceremony
Suicide note exposed – shocking unspoken rules
Two years after Zhang Ziyan's death, on the evening of March 6, 2011, the South Korean SBS news program published Zhang Ziyan's suicide note for the first time, which shocked four people: Between 2005 and 2009, Zhang Ziyan was asked by the brokerage company to provide hundreds of disposable services to 31 men, including large enterprises, senior executives of financial institutions, heads of performing arts planning companies, and senior directors of news media.
In her suicide note, Zhang Ziyan said that even if she died, she would take revenge on the demons, and the demons she referred to in her letter believed to be agents who forced her to provide sexual services.
The head of SBS News said that the public letters have been verified by experts to confirm that the letters are indeed from Zhang Ziyan herself.
The report pushed Zhang Ziyan's suicide and the unspoken rules of the Korean entertainment industry to the cusp of the storm.
Slave contracts and inhuman treatment
Jang's agency was The Contents Entertainment, and the president at the time was Kim Seung-hoon. It is worth mentioning that Zhang Ziyan is not the first female artist in the company to commit suicide, and Jin's agency once had two female artists who committed suicide, one is Zheng Duobin and the other is Cui Zhen. This is a very frightening point.
Zhang Ziyan's origins led her to sign a slave contract with a brokerage company, which stated that Zhang Ziyan needed to pay 1 billion won (about 6 million yuan) for breach of contract, which was also the beginning of her later tragedy.
According to South Korean media reports, Zhang Ziyan has been squeezed by the company after signing a contract, and has only played a few supporting roles in the past few years, and she wants to escape but cannot pay a high liquidated damages, which is also one of the reasons for her severe depression.
Zhang Ziyan played one of the evil trio in "Fancy Men"
Of course, the slave contract was only secondary, and more seriously, the company's inhuman behavior against her was exposed. According to the news, Zhang Ziyan signed more than one contract with the brokerage company at that time, and there were other unsightly additional contracts.
According to the staff of the brokerage company, in order to facilitate the "reception" of customers, president Jin Mou changed the first floor of the company into a bar, and the third floor is a VIP room containing KTV and bathing. Whenever the company had "important guests" coming, employees were put on vacation and the next day they saw a house full of wine bottles and leftover meals.
Zhang Ziyan was forced to become a tool for the company to win over power, and if she did not agree, she would be beaten, and many of the company's staff said they had seen the scene of the violence. President Jin Mou slammed Zhang Ziyan on the head with his hand or an empty bottle. She would even be locked up in a small black room until she gave in.
The company arranged endless receptions for her, fed her medicine to eliminate her resistance, and even forced her to undergo sterilization surgery.
There are also some details of hospitality that are too cruel to be described here.
The suicide note says: Every time you change into new clothes, it is a day when you must entertain a new man... I was really too dirty and miserable.
Some people may say why not call the police? Here we will mention the list of 31 people in Zhang Ziyan's suicide note.
Although the media did not publish the specific list, the father and son of the Lotte Group, the former president of the Chosun Ilbo, and others quickly became the object of suspicion of netizens. Apparently, the list was full of people she couldn't afford to provoke, so much so that the subsequent investigation into the case could not be further investigated.
Not only that, when the incident was exposed, Zhang Ziyan was completely unable to survive in the show business circle, and even had no way to survive in society. After all, the current society's tolerance for sex scandal women is extremely low, and she is still a beautiful actress who is wandering in the show business circle.
Even so, Zhang Ziyan called the police before committing suicide, but she was slightly verbally abused by the law enforcement officers at the time, asking her to tell in detail about the process of sexual assault, and even making absurd demands such as painting the sexual organs of the perpetrators.
The people who take advantage of her and the people who speak for her
After the investigation into Zhang Ziyan's suicide case was launched, an actress closely related to the case, Lee Mi-sook, was also dug up, and she was suspected of taking advantage of Zhang Ziyan's forced hospitality before Zhang Ziyan's death.
D News Agency Title: Lee Mi Sook, do you really not know anything?
Li Meishu and Zhang Ziyan are not only colleagues in the company, but also the same agent. Later, the agent and the boss Jin Mou disagreed, and took Lee Mi-sook to stand on his own, but he soon found himself jumping into a big pit, because Lee Mi-sook had a contract and a huge amount of liquidated damages.
Lee Mi-sook knows about Zhang Ziyan's forced hospitality, so she tells Zhang Ziyan that as long as she writes out the list of sleepers, she can help her get out of the company. As a result, the list written by Zhang Ziyan became the handle of Li Meishu's threat to the company, and she successfully left the company.
Lee Mi-sook
The list was quickly leaked out, and Zhang Ziyan, far from the nightmare, would be persecuted by those on the list while suffering retaliation from her boss. Zhang Ziyan also chose to commit suicide.
Of course, there are also people who speak for Zhang Ziyan publicly, she is the only descendant of Zhang Ziyan who is willing to come forward in the case, Yin Zhiwu, and those Korean friends who agreed to testify on Beg ziyan could not be contacted before the trial.
Zhang Ziyan and Yin Zhiwu take a group photo
Yin Zhiwu has testified for Zhang Ziyan's case 13 times, naming Li Meishu in a live broadcast program, saying: If I remember wrongly, or understand the wrong part, I hope that the seniors can come out and say "there is a misunderstanding, the truth is actually like this."
Yin Zhiwu was interviewed
How did it end?
Although all indications point to the appalling humiliation and assault on Zhang Ziyan during her lifetime, in the aftermath of her death, the court found that "there was insufficient evidence of sexual hospitality" and that Ms. Zhang's boss, Kim Seung-hoon, and her agent, Liu Changhao, were sentenced to 1 year in prison, suspended for 2 years, and 160 hours of social service for violent beatings.
After Zhang Ziyan committed suicide, the police once believed that the cause of her suicide was long-term depression
The show exposed more than 50 handwritten letters that Ms. Zhang wrote to her friends before she died, because they were from the hands of paranoia prisoners, and South Korean police suspected that they were forged. Later, the head of the National Science Search Institute said at the press conference that by comparing with Zhang Ziyan's handwriting, it can be determined that these letters are not from Zhang Ziyan's own hand, but should be written by others pretending to be Zhang Ziyan's name.
In 2014, the court ordered 45-year-old Kim Seung-hoon to compensate Jang's family for 24 million won (about 145,000 yuan) for being forced to accompany the wine.
Kim only admitted to having "slightly abused and beaten Ms. Jang" and denied most of the allegations, including forced prostitution
In the course of the investigation of the case, the police originally found important physical evidence - the transfer checks of various high-level celebrities to Zhang Ziyan, totaling several million yuan. However, the prosecution accepted these people's claims, "because I think Zhang Ziyan is pitiful, it is the money to buy her seaweed rice." The important evidence of the case was also destroyed, and the case was hastily concluded.
Yoon Ji-woo confirmed that Cho, a reporter from the Chosun Ilbo, sexually harassed Jang Ziyan
JTBC's "News Room" and MBC's "PD Handbook" have stated that Zhang Ziyan also accompanied the wine on her mother's death day
South Korea's parliament symbolically said it would introduce the "Jang Ziyan Act" to sweep away unspoken rules, protect the rights and interests of artists, and avoid "slavery contracts."
On March 20, 2019, because of the popularity of the Victory Nightclub incident, Zhang Ziyan's suicide case was once again concerned by the public. South Korean President Moon Jae-in ordered a thorough investigation into the Jang Affair. On May 20 of the same year, South Korean prosecutors concluded after deliberation that the investigation into Zhang Ziyan's sexual assault case could not be reopened. It is only advisable to strengthen measures in the future to prevent similar incidents.
Plaything
In 2013, four years after Zhang Ziyan's death, an adaptation of the film "Plaything" was released. The film is based on the "Jang Ziyan Incident" that shocked South Korea in 2009, exposing the ugly social phenomenon of "sexual bribery" in the entertainment and political circles.
Zhang Ziyan was a poor woman, she was humiliated, oppressed and deceived before she died, and she could not get the comfort and peace she deserved after death.
Most people look back on this woman's tragic life, wearing colored glasses and a curious and stimulating mentality, trampling on her wounds over and over again.
The law can't give her justice, society can't give her warmth, friends can't give her freedom, too many people want to use her to achieve something, but maybe all she wants is a peaceful and peaceful space.