Virginia

Monday

Dae-woo, a native Korean from Seoul and mother of two Korean-American twenty-somethings living in America, was the first to arrive, promptly as usual, at 9:30am for our free-talking class. It was an overcast Monday morning with a stale hint of humidity in the air.

"It's true! Dae Woo announced adjusting herself in her seat at other end of the conference table. "The shooter's Chinese." She took some time to reflect on this. "I'm so relieved. Thank God he wasn't Korean."

Soon, the other free-talkers joined us—Hae-kyung, Hyun-ji, Na-young and Sally. They smiled with comfort as Dae-woo, their comparative elder, explained the rumors surrounding the Virgina Tech shooting.

As I listened to my students turn rumor into reality, I noticed something interesting in our treatment of tragedy. Insofar as we could empathize with the tragic event at a safe distance, sensing the fear, anger and pain of the students and professors who were shot, my free-talkers and I were able to say quietly to ourselves and to no one else: At least it wasn't and couldn't have been me. I'm neither a killer nor do I belong to an ethnicity of people who are killers; I'm neither a Virginia Tech student nor an employee there. It couldn't have been me.

Tuesday

At 9:30am Dae-woo walked in the door. She paced to her seat, sat down, placed her purse on a chair next to hers and asked me if I had heard the bad news. I said yes and I'm sorry, I wish it wasn't true and we have lots to talk about today. Hae-kyung, Hyun-ji, Na-young and Sally strolled in.

Cho Seung-hui was a Korean native who moved to America in 1992, according to several news sources. I handed out a few articles that I had printed earlier that morning. We read through them as our voices grazed over English sentences in a quiet register. The students expressed confusion and grief—both appropriate emotions for such an event. But a few said they also felt a sense of shame to be Korean. I nodded, asked questions and took notes.

Some of my students said Cho must have been crazy or that he "probably had some mental problems" (This was before any substantial evidence had been released about his background, his major, or speculation about his psychology). I asked my class if they knew the prevalence of "craziness" (i.e., psychopathy) in America. They gleefully yelled out numbers like "fifty percent!" "At least 70," "More than 30?" The finding I remember from my clinical psychology courses—don’t quote me—was around the one to two percent spectrum, if that.

. . .

To the foreign teaching staff, gun violence on yet another school campus can be catalogued along with the others, though this casual acceptance hardly abates the weight of the recent event. But for Koreans in Gwangju, the shooting struck the wrong chord. A Native Korean seized the lives of 32 Americans as well as his own. How will this incident affect the image of Koreans both in the States and internationally, especially in Southeast Asia and Australia (many Koreans study abroad in Australia and New Zealand)? Will we be treated like the Arab population after September 11? What about relations between the U.S. and Korea? Economics, trade? Will traveling or studying abroad in the U.S. be more difficult because of this? I wish I had had the answers to their questions. As their teacher, there was a sense in which I felt I should have had answers, several well thought-out and grounded ones.

As our trusted media punch out the details in the coming weeks, I hope we can arrive at a better understanding of what happened in Virginia, that we can foster international communication between the States and Korea.

My students and I wish to send our condolences to the Virginia Tech community.