Roh was a politician so he was naturally a divisive figure. It seems the media has simply tried to split the different between his supporters and opponents and describe him as a controversial figure, which is not much of a description. The BBC introduces him this way:
With his relative youth, lowly beginnings and promises to root out endemic political corruption, he seemed when he took power in 2003 to be the new start the country needed. But his term in office was a rollercoaster ride. His Uri party was hit by scandal and in-fighting, and there was fierce public opposition to several of his policies. He was even suspended early in 2004, after parliament voted to impeach him over a breach of election rules, but the Constitutional Court later overturned the move and he was reinstated....
Ironically, it was scandal and political infighting that also blighted Mr Roh's time in office.That's not an adequate description of his presidency. In fact, it is downright misleading. Roh was far from a scandalous president. He was more like a boring one. His impeachment in 2004 was an effort by the conservative opposition to oust him by charging him with violating the strange Korean election law that prohibits the president from endorsing candidates for the National Assembly. The move was widely seen as illegitimate, as evidenced by the tens of thousands of Koreans who took to the streets to demand his reinstatement. In the subsequent general elections the conservatives were punished severely by the electorate for their attempt.
The current corruption case opened only in the last several months. While the prosecution has been unable to trace where all of the money went and how it was used, there is no sign that the businessman who gave funds to Roh's wife and aide received any benefit in return. At worst, the people around Roh made some serious errors of judgment. Regardless, there is little doubt that he is the South Korean president who least abused his power.
So, to say that he was an idealist corrupted by power, as the newswire suggests, is unfair. Roh does not deserve that obituary. It was precisely that line of reporting in the Korean media which drove him to humiliation. However, this is not to say that his presidency was without problems. He attempted to undertake many reforms but in many areas he was rebuffed. He tried to move the administrative capital out of Seoul but the plan was crushed. He tried to separate the major broadcasters from politicians and failed. At other times, he made perhaps unnecessary steps to take property away from descendants of collaborators with Japanese colonial rulers. He couldn't figure out what to do with large numbers of graduates who couldn't find work. He continued the "sunshine policy" of his predecessor, Nobel laureate Kim Dae Jung, but remained vague on concrete steps toward unification with North Korea. Several policies made him unpopular with specific groups: as a left of center politician, his increases of property taxes irked many well-to-do families.
Roh's difficulties and shortcomings were political and not related to his integrity. He remained committed to his goals but he faced problems in making many policies. Katong Couple hopes Roh is remembered that way.
What are the implications of this event? It is indeed momentous that he was driven to suicide by public humiliation. Something is deeply flawed in the Korean judicial system. Prosecutors went hard after Roh Moo Hyun. Clearly, suspected bribery involving a president should be investigated. But the prosecution was zealous, expending massive resources on a very public investigation. The problem is that the prosecution was politicized. Prosecutors appear to have believed they would be rewarded if they went after Roh. President Lee could have stopped them, but why would he? The episode provided a nice distraction from economic problems and helped discredit the opposition.
The media, too, did its part to play up the case. It certainly didn't hurt that President Lee, unlike Roh, is proving to be a friend of the mainstream, corporate-controlled media. Newspaper publishers could have stepped up and printed editorials urging the government to focus on reviving the economy or could have given less press to the case against Roh. But they did not. All of this ensured that Roh would be alienated and humiliated. (On Global Voices, Hyejin has covered government efforts to regulate the Internet. A few celebrities in recent years of committed suicide and the government blames nasty anonymous comments left online for the humiliation which caused those deaths. Here we see that newspapers and television broadcasters can create the same kind of humiliation.)
The case reflects the inability of the judiciary (and the media) to distinguish between major and minor infractions of law. Infractions committed by Roh pale in comparison to the abuses of the authoritarian presidents of the past. There are several questions Koreans and their lawmakers need to ask themselves. How can we monitor abuses of power without allowing that process to become political? Do we really want laws which can lead to a president being impeached for simply stating his political preferences? While politics is competitive in Korea, the legal infrastructure to protect democracy remains under construction. The national tragedy of Roh's death is that the prosecution, the media, and the current administration could have made other choices and still upheld the spirit of competitive politics.
The cemetery was used up until the end of the war for the Japanese community in Singapore. There are many interesting graves here. Many Japanese women who served as prostitutes are buried here. In fact, according to the signboard, the cemetery was established by a man who was a Japanese brothel owner and palm planter. 
Most of the people buried here are soldiers who died in Singapore. Below you can see a tomb for one group of them. Someone appears to have paid respects at this tomb...
Here is some art for sale on the street, with political posters in front. We visited a few weeks before the elections, so posters for probably hundreds of different candidates were everywhere. Boys lounge about the streets playing guitar, sometimes trying to get donations from people stuck in traffic. 
Bandung has a indoor/outdoor shopping malls, like this one called Ciwalk. The crowd is gathered to watch a group of Bandung children dressed in Balinese costume playing the violin. Not the most obvious combination. 
We walked through a simple neighborhood which was bursting with children. On one side, this neighborhood is separated from the shopping malls and upscale houses by a stream. 
This blue building is also quite old, and has terraces which apparently used to be common. 
The Pak Tai Temple next door is 140 years old, quiet, and very pleasant.
The walk takes you past a Sikh Temple -- and here we have a Sikh in the foreground and the Muslim cemetery in the background.
Here's a Parsee tombstone. I wonder why they also use Latin...
The Muslim cemetery is nothing like the ones we've seen in southeast Asia. There is plenty of writing and in several languages, including Chinese, Arabic, and English. Here's the grave of a Chinese woman who apparently married a Muslim man. 
