Ethnic Koreans React

Reporting from South Korea, Robert Koehler of the Marmot's Hole writes that the Virginia Tech shootings by Cho Seung-Hui have produced rumblings regarding possible harm to U.S.-South Korean relations and the country's international image. The reach of the massacre story is global with literally thousands of voices raising salient questions while some scratch the scabs of seemingly unrelated issues. And the story is not even a week old.

So far, specific Korean responses to the massacre have been sympathetic, apologetic and apprehensive. Here's some examples.

- President Roh Moo-hyun and Foreign Minister Song Min-soon have voiced their condolences to the American public.

- With tears in his eyes, Korean Ambassador to Washington, Lee Tae-shik, said that the Korean-American community should use the Virginia Tech massacre to self-assess, repent and seek to rejoin U.S. mainstream society.

- Washington State Sen. Paull Shin, adopted by an American soldier after the Korean War, fought his emotions while apologizing to fellow lawmakers and staff in private and in Senate chambers. "It hurts me deeply, knowing what happened to Korea and how much the U.S. helped. This is not the way to pay back the blessings we received."

In the early going, it seems that condolences from the ethnic Korean community express a measure of soulful pain, unlike the general flood of sincere messages sent from other corners of the globe. It's as if the Koreans believe they harbor some of the blame for the actions of one homicidal psychopath. Frankly, I don't see it myself. I'm inclined to agree with Robert's remarks.

He was a sick kid. Period. You can talk try to read into this tragedy cultural factors all you like (and I'm afraid that's going to happen both in the United States and here in Korea), but the fact remains that there are 100,000 Korean students in the United States, not to mention about 1 million Korean-Americans, many of whom share the same cultural background as the shooter, and NONE of them have shot up their schools. The overwhelming majority, in fact, are upstanding members of their academic and residential communities. Cho Seung-hui is about as representative of the Korean community as the Columbine shooters were of the white community, that is to say, he's not.

Having the ethnic Korean community torn between grief, shame and self-admonition is an unreasonable reaction to the unforeseen atrocity, in my opinion.