More Korean Reactions to Shooting Rampage
New America Media, News Digest, Kapson Yim Lee, Posted: Apr 20, 2007
Editor's Note: NAM contributor Kapson Yim Lee looks at Korean reactions to the Virginia shootings as reported by U.S.-based newspapers The Korea Times and The Korea Daily.
SAN FRANCISCO – Korean-Americans’ fear of a backlash from the campus massacre at Virginia Tech eased a bit when mainstream news media began focusing on issues that concern all Americans, such as mental illness, gun control and campus security, rather than the ethnicity of the gunman.
Their anxiety, however, was understandable. Koreans cannot forget the nightmares that resulted from the 1992 Los Angeles riots, in which they were targeted and more than 2,000 Korean-owned businesses were destroyed.
On April 17, when the news about the gunman Seung-hui Cho broke, Seung-wook Lee, president of the Korean Students Association, convened an emergency meeting to prepare Korean students emotionally for possible verbal abuses or physical attacks.
Korean students attending Virginia Tech were on edge. "We are hesitating to go to the school's cafeteria for fear of possible retaliation," a student said. "We gather in threes or fours when we go out. Some stayed in their dormitory all day long." Some who came from Korea were thinking about returning to Korea, Lee said. Some 1,000 Korean students, including hundreds from Korea, are enrolled at Virginia Tech, he said.
At Westfield High School in Chantilly, Virginia, the gunman’s old school, tension was evident. Several Korean students reportedly were deliberately hit with backpacks.
In Los Angeles, several Korean students were physically attacked at a junior high school near Koreatown, according to Jenny Kim, a parent of an eighth-grader. The school authority told the parents they were investigating the report, she said.
In Korea, the anxiety level is running just as high. Many students, who were preparing to apply for colleges in the United States, are rethinking their plans. At a consulting agency in Seoul, which specializes in helping Korean students find a foreign school, some students withdrew their applications for study in the United States, even though they had already paid the deposit of $2,000.
At the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, only a dozen Koreans showed up on April 19 to apply for a U.S. visa. The line of people waiting each day outside the office used to average about 100 yards long.
The Korean Tourism Organization (KTO) said it pulled its "Sparkling Korea" television advertisements off CNN after the shootings. "It would be inappropriate to air the 30-second ads featuring images of Korea's culture and natural beauty in between the news reports of a shooting rampage by a Korean-born student,” said Park Young-Kyu, an official at the KTO branch in New York.
In an extreme case, the Kangwon Ilbo, a daily newspaper based in Korea, published a series of interviews with government officials to calm local fears that the Virginia Tech shootings might have a negative effect on local efforts to host the 2014 Winter Olympics at the region's ski resort in Pyeong Chang.
Lee Tae-shik, the Korean ambassador to the United States, came under fire from the Korean media. While speaking at a Korean church in Washington, D.C., he suggested that Korean American Christians fast for 32 days to mourn the 32 people Cho killed.
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User Comments
Cho on May 04, 2007 at 15:10:09 said:
It is a shame when someone of your race does something stupid. However, it does not mean that all asians or all Koreans are to blame. That you are afraid if your ethnicity is that of Cho's, then, practically, you have a right to be. It's human nature to be shallow and petty and blame one group for an individual's actions. However, you cannot adjust your lifestyle and cannot hide in fear of reprisal. You must continue to behave as you had before this unfortunate incident. Those who may attack you will be punished by the same system that we all abide by/follow. Do not be scared. Be prepared.
asz on May 03, 2007 at 06:42:13 said:
Why blame/hurt Koreans for one Korean mistake. I\'m not here to justify Cho\'s action but imagine how many students in Virginia Tech and one person without friends and without some one to talk to. What if he have some friends to share his all his problems? What if his teacher instead of pulling him out of his/her class tried there best to talk to him until he will learn how to share not only pursued him to see a doctor.? What if bullying from his childhood did not happen? Maybe the shooting has been prevented. This is the sad reality that racial discrimination is still strongly practiced.
Hia Kim on Apr 29, 2007 at 06:16:35 said:
To kissinger above, this is indeed the sad truth. Racism was protected by the Korean constitution until about a year ago. They have made progress. The Korean government is finally ordering schools to stop publishing the "Koreans are the most homogenous people on the earth" myth in their textbooks.
My two boys attend Korean schools and I am appalled at the racist and Xenophobic things they are exposed to. However, the silver lining in the dark cloud hanging over the VT shooting is that some racism is being exposed and talked about in the Korean media. The progress is slow, but as long as there is dialogue, there will be continued progress.
I live in Los Angeles... on Apr 25, 2007 at 11:48:40 said:
...I'm white, and I live near K-Town. I haven't even felt any tension since these shootings. I haven't heard a single bad word said about Koreans. It may be true that Koreans are afraid of a negative reaction, but that doesn't mean there has been one. I do think they're afraid that people will act like they would if an American went on a rampage in Korea. This article should point out that the rest of America has acted appropriately, and hasn't held other Koreans accountable for the actions of this one bad apple.
Gwen Easter on Apr 23, 2007 at 19:13:56 said:
I have just one comment.........If the shooter had been Italian-American, and been in the US since he was 8 years old, would Italy feel the
necessity to apologize for his actions? I think
not. For some reason, if the person is Euro-American that fact is considered irrelevant. Never mind the huge percentage of school shooters
happen to be of European descent!
I think a more appropriate conversation would be
to discuss the level of bullying that can lead to
this situation, as well as medication that Cho might have been on that can result in violence.
Shin Gwang Soo on Apr 23, 2007 at 16:32:06 said:
Korean reactions to the shooting rampage are accurate mirror of their own racism. South Korean people would throw rocks at Americans and cry out them "Yankees go home" if exactly the same incident happened in Seoul and committed by an American. Koreans are frightened by their own racism and they don't trust non-Korean.
cm on Apr 23, 2007 at 00:14:41 said:
One can hardly fault non-white folks for feeling we have to put our heads down when a person belonging to our race or ethnicities commits a horrendous act since the mainstream media and culture does very little to make non-white folks feel ok about being non-white. There are very few stories or shows written for or about the lives of non-white folks on TV. The absence of stories or shows centered around non-white folks, indicates non-white folks' relative invisibility in mainstream media (except in news reporting). This probably implies the industry's and white public's general lack of acknowledgement of our existence, and lack of interest in how we actually live in America.
kissinger on Apr 22, 2007 at 08:33:21 said:
Indeed this is sad... but this article also reminds me the way Koreans(Korean-American) in United States have been playing \"racism card\", like... this one on this site...
news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=de17ca149e1cb1fdf724171810fda32e
\"Japanese PM\'s Apology For WWII Sex Slaves: What Next?\"
They\'ve put \"What Next\" on someone\'s apology, and justified it without any opposing view. These kind of articles really have made Korean \"racist\" against Japanese kids.
Korean can put \"What Next\" if it\'s someone else\'s apology... However, they now think their apology must be always accepted because we are racist? Heh.
kjbrown on Apr 21, 2007 at 13:08:25 said:
I think it very sad that an ethnic group (or any group for that matter) should feel blaimed for the actions of an obviously deranged individual.
It's like blaiming the entire Muslim religion for the actions of the fanatics and terrorists. Hopefully some day we'll grow up as humans and judge the individual by his actions, not his skin color or background.
kpeters on Apr 20, 2007 at 20:55:02 said:
That sucks that Koreans have to feel that way in America. To feel it to be innappropriate to show a commercial for Korean tourism is sad. But all people of color put their heads down when one of their own does something negatively in American society. It is a sad part of our society's structure. We still feel like outsiders even though we are born here because our ethnicity is not White American.
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