The nation of 48 million people reacted with shock and grief to the news that the hand that pulled the trigger was that of a person of South Korean descent.
HONG KONG: In 1992, Cho Seong-tae, then 45, moved out of his suburban Seoul basement apartment and emigrated to the US with his wife and eight-year-old son to pursue the American Dream. On Monday, that dream came crashing down to earth to the staccato bursts of two handguns when his son, Cho Seung-Hui mowed down 33 students and professors at Virginia Tech University.
The nation of 48 million people reacted with shock and grief to the news that the hand that pulled the trigger was that of a person of South Korean descent. President Roh Moo-hyun led his country in offering his condolences — and hoping that there wouldn’t be a backlash against the Korean community in the US. “I hope US society can overcome its immense sadness and find composure at the earliest,” Roh said.
Choosing his words carefully to avoid racial stereotyping — Michael Hurt, a doctoral candidate at UC Berkeley’s Department of Comparative Ethnic Studies, who came to Korea on a Fulbright in 1994 and now lives and teaches in Seoul and who is himself half Korean and half black American — notes that it would be unfair to extrapolate from Cho’s experiences and draw conclusions about Korean society in general.
“But as an educator in Korea, who watches Korean kids going through the wrenching grind of a failed education system and come under immense familial pressure to perform, I do think it is worth mentioning the factors that often affect Korean men living as foreign students in the US.”
Hurt recalls that a meeting some years ago, at which a group of US university administrators pointedly mentioned that of all their international students, the students who had the most disciplinary problems were Korean males. “They cited several incidents of physical conflicts with other graduate students over simple matters, Korean males threatening Korean women students for talking to a foreign man, and — in the case of Korean couples living on campus — instances of domestic violence.”
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}