Right after the unspeakable, horrendous shooting rampage at Virginia Tech last Monday, the shooter’s identity was revealed by the campus police, Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old South Korean student. It is unusual to give Cho's name beginning with the last name; his name is Seung-Hui Cho; he has been a student there with that name. He immigrated to this country with his parents at age of eight and was schooled here in America for more than a decade. He was put in an American system - in school, in cultural and social space. Some American media made a big headline: “South Korean gunman,” which is misleading! What does South Korea have to do with this incident? His blood is Korean if it matters at all but his lived life has been on American soil.

Furthermore, a quite interesting development is that some Korean media along with Korean immigrants here in the US responded to this incident with a collective guilty feeling - an overreaction. This kind of dyadic culture often times could be dangerous or misleading because it may miss individual voices. Often, under the cover of nationalism, communalism, patriotism, people do not see individual voices – individual matters. Here individual voices mean that we need to take a look at Cho’s case from Cho’s persona in his specific life context. For example, his primary identity is American. As his childhood story emerges, he had symptom of autism very early on, even before coming to U.S. In fact, I am wondering what if Seung-Hui had not immigrated to US. Had he ended up this tragedy? Certainly, his school life in US was indeed a lonely one, and often he was picked on and bullied by his classmates. One day in high school English class a teacher threatened Cho with a F grade if he did not participate in class; so he barely read English with a low, timid voice. Right after his reading, classmates responded to him, “go to China.” I guess his feeling of being lost like plunging into thousands of thousands deep cliff. For a long time he had lived within his internal world, keeping burning charcoal inside. Utterly public humiliation seemed so unbearable, like burning without smoke, not knowing what or how to do about it.

I am wondering what if he had been regularly treated with his mental illness (whichever it may be) early on from Korea and in America. What we could have done more, whether as parents, or various communities involved in him (including the recent college campus), was to take his mental illness seriously and get help from medical or counseling experts. Often, parents or community do not do their job because in some Christian circle they think that praying can do everything so that God will take care of them. Often praying does not help without specific actions taken. I think one of the dangerous temptations is that praying can resolve everything. Our pastors should not preach that way! Our Christian believers should not believe that they can do whatever they want if they pray enough. I can imagine that sometimes pastors or genuine Christians have overconfidence about curing mental illness by the power of prayer without resorting to medical or counseling experts. But in fact there are more unexplainable things than we actually understand, which means we should do everything possible within our reach. Naïve spiritualization (seeing mental illness as punishment or any other spiritual obstacle) does not help or solve any problem; It is equally true that too much optimism about science does not serve, either. The nature of Cho's tragedy can be approached from many different angles: individually and communally, socio-culturally, psychologically, and medical-mentally. I am also wondering how American school or religious communities, or any social spaces around the country will do better in relation to minority or the marginalized.

In closing , one person’s note left at the memorial stone for Seung-Hui Cho in the Virginia Tech field reads: “I am saddened by knowing how much you needed a desperate help.” This note reminds us of moral responsibility for all. If he was born with significant loss of social adaptation skill coupled with uncaring communities around him (if we call it mental illness), who is to blame? What can we learn from this? How can we make difference, individually and communally?

April 2007, Richmond, VA