Virginia Tech shakes Korean campuses
By Donald Kirk
SEOUL - In the student center of Korea University, third-year student Kim
Woo-ree wondered if some protective mothers will now be more determined than
ever to discourage their children from studying in the US.
"I heard about one high-school boy who got accepted on early admission to an
Ivy League university in the States but now he's not going to go there," she
said. "Some Korean moms are reluctant to send boys to the States and even more
reluctant to
send girls."
Kim, 20, who was sent to secondary school in Hong Kong, said, "Most Korean
people these days are worried Americans will see all Koreans as that kind of
psychopath." Once Americans "get such an impression", she fears, "it's not that
easy to get rid of".
Such fears dominate conversation on the campus as students, facing exams next
week, take time to read about the tragedy in which South Korean-born student
Cho Seung-hui killed 32 people at Virginia Tech before turning his gun on
himself. They worry about the implications, the reasons, and what the tragedy
means for Korea as well as the US.
"Now people hesitate to go to the US," said Kim Min-wook, 25, a fourth-year
student. "They are looking for another country. Maybe they want to study
English. If they have a chance, they go elsewhere."
For him, the immediate future is clear. After he graduates in June, he plans to
continue studies in England. The US, he hears, "is more dangerous than Canada,
Australia or England." Students speculated as to some of the reasons.
"We hear it's not prohibited to buy a gun in the US," said Hwang In-yeol, a
25-year-old fourth-year student. "I think the company that makes guns has the
strongest lobby in the US."
The ease with which Cho bought two pistols is incredible to students like Kim
and Hwang. They both served more than two years in the Korean army - the reason
why they and other young men in their last two years in college are slightly
older than students in other countries - and they have had fairly wide
experience firing rifles while on training exercises.
They are sure, however, that America would be a much safer place if guns were
banned. "If the US prohibits selling guns," said Hwang, "gangs will no longer
have them."
While speculating on such issues, though, some students - and older Koreans -
are confident the "accident", as it is commonly known, will fade into history
and Koreans will continue to go to the US in large numbers.
"For a while people will not be willing to go there," said Seo Ji-yeong, 20,
"but after a while, it's going to be, maybe not forgotten but as if nothing
happened. People will forget. People who have a strong will to study will go to
the States no mater what."
An assistant professor of peace studies, Oh Young-dahl, strolling across the
campus after a class, reflected a widespread view when he called it "kind of an
accidental case" even though episodes of violence "happen so often in the
States compared with other countries like Korea".
Oh noted that "the US constitution allows American citizens to bear firearms"
and "it has a lot to do with the background of the US".
He even offered a defense of sorts. "The freedom to carry guns places a balance
against a dictator," he said. "The US is a huge country. We don't know what
will happen if people cannot have guns."
Much talk focuses on the individual circumstances that drove Cho's family to
emigrate to America when he was just 8 years old. Korean reporters flocked to
the run-down apartment block on the northern fringes of Seoul where Cho's
family lived in a cheap basement flat.
The landlady, Im Bong-ae, 67, before tiring of talking to reporters and
vanishing from public view, said, "I don't know what the father did but they
were having a hard time financially."
Cho's father, Cho Seung-tae, told her, "Life is so harsh, I'm going to the
States - it's better to live in a place where you don't know anybody than to
live in Korea." That explanation made sense to Albert Kim, who did
undergraduate and graduate work in the US after the Korean War and later worked
for the United Nations as a senior adviser to several foreign governments.
"The father goes to the States and becomes a lowly shopkeeper," he said. "Then
the son sees many well-to-do people, and he feels an inferiority complex.
Because of his personality, he is very isolated and doesn't talk to people. He
wants to destroy them."
Albert Kim doubted that this case would have much real impact on Koreans in the
US.
"This will not discourage students," he said. "They know study in the States is
the only way to a really good education. Everybody wants to go to the US to
study." Korean universities, with their hidebound rules and inhibitions on
creative thinking, he said, "are hell".
There is no doubt that the US remains by far the most popular destination for
Koreans - whether for business or study.
Approximately 1.2 million ethnic Koreans now live in the US, and 93,728 Koreans
were studying there at all levels as of last December, according to immigration
officials.
That figure, 14.9% of all foreigners in American universities as well as
secondary and primary schools, is by far the largest single national grouping,
well ahead of India with 76,708 students; China , 60,850 students; and Japan,
45,820. Others may not share such a critical view of life in Korean academe but
agree the impact of the Virginia Tech tragedy will not be long-lasting.
Among 190,364 Koreans studying at foreign universities last year, according to
the Korean Council for University Education, 58,940 were in the US compared
with 29,102 in China, the second most popular destination, and 18,845 in the
United Kingdom.
The Virginia Tech episode "is not going to change anything at all", said Ho
Byung-min at the Korean Council for University Education. "The number of Korean
students in the States is going to increase, not decrease," he predicts. One
reason is that "it's such a big merit in Korea these days to study English".
Frank Plantan, on leave from his post as co-director of the international
relations program at the University of Pennsylvania, agreed that the impact
would be short-lived. "In the short run there'll be debate in Korea about
American culture and violence in America," said Plantan, a visiting fellow this
year at Kyunghee University.
"Every five or 10 years there are incidents at American universities and some
foreigners are killed on American campuses. I don't think it will stop Koreans
from studying in the US"
Nonetheless, Plantan observed, "some Korean parents do not let their kids go to
certain universities" - usually those in major cities, such as The University
of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Plantan recognized that the initial response "is probably a boon to Australia",
since some Koreans will choose to go there rather than the US, but he hopes
Koreans will get over the fear of an anti-Korean reaction. "I don't think
anyone will think of Koreans as particularly bad," he said. "I don't think
there will be any broad strokes of painting Koreans as a people."
Plantan attributes Korean fears on that score to their own unity as a society
and culture. "The Korean response is part of their being a homogeneous
society," he said. "The group norm in Korea is so powerful, and they are so
self-conscious of themselves as a people."
Government officials repeatedly struggled with concerns that Americans might
respond negatively, perhaps even violently, to Koreans whether on university
campuses, in schools or in the thousands of small shops and stores owned by
Korean entrepreneurs who have migrated, like Cho's father, to the US in recent
years.
Expressions of "shock" and "shame" were repeated on television programs, on the
streets, in government briefings. "This is too terrible, too serious," said
Chang Sung-eun, a woman working for a Korean company. "This is more than a
national shame. I am speechless."
"What kind of impact will it give our whole society and Korean society in the
States?" she asked.
Journalist Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and the confrontation of
forces in Northeast Asia - for more than 30 years.
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