Cho Rising

According to the New York Times, Ross Alameddine*, a 20 year old Virginia Tech student, was most proud of his car - a Pontiac Grand Am. He'd won it in a raffle. Ross referred to the teal-colored car as the car "I got for a dollar."

Alameddine had taken pains in a recent class to support and encourage Seiung-hui Cho to participate and contribute. Alameddine sat near him, and he was Cho's first victim.
Meanwhile, it is easy to make sweeping generalisations about Cho, or about the students at Virginia Tech, even about South Korea (as I have).

We can blame Cho (as most are doing), and dismiss him as mad. We can blame the students, and say they were insensitive. We can find fault with the systems on campus. In the end it's a combination of these and other factors.

I think it is a mistake to look too singlemindedly at one thing. I have noticed for example, that Cho was not as nasty and evil as most would have us believe. He was, perhaps, a pretty unpleasant fellow in his final hours, but as a schoolboy he has been described as basically polite, doing well at school and quietly harmless.

Meanwhile, though some of the students at Virginia Tech were undoubtedly mean, others certainly reached out on numerous occasions. The question can be asked: did Cho experience more meanness or more reaching out? Of course, in fairness the same question could be posed to Cho about his own behaviour.

I have done extensive reading on various sites, including the accounts and interviews of other citizen reporters. One that impressed me was an interview between a South Korean citizen journalist and Jennifer Chapman, who went to school with Seiung-hui Cho.
Chapman also describes him as "so quiet, shy and awkward and didn't want to talk to others. But I think it wasn't a mean, hatred type of silence. I felt like he was hurting, not hating someone. This tragedy is a huge loss for the community. I feel very sorry that we didn't realise that he was so troubled."

Chapman goes on to sketch an entirely different picture of the schoolboy: "His silence reminds me of his school days, but other details such as violent writings and stalking women are inconsistent with the high school student I knew. He was quiet. He would never have stalked a girl or talked to a girl."

What's also interesting is Cho's victims included young and old, Western and Asian students - like Henry Lee, a 20-year-old ethnic Chinese studying Computer Engineeering.
It's possible that Cho's habit, of withdrawing into his shell, which may have paid off at school, did not work beyond school, but he found himself ill-equipped to deal with emotionally developed individuals around him.

The reservoir of pain that had been steadily filling up, even at school level, had probably rapidly filled to overflowing at university, where there were so many more issues at state, including the unspoken mission of each student at university: find yourself and find a definition for yourself.
Cho possibly found that either he couldn't, or that he was unable to verbalise it. This disability first manifested in a failure to engage the opposite sex, or in fact, engage with anyone, including, to an extent one supposes, his own family (an aunt describes him as "cold" and having "difficulty communicating", which worried his mother).

On the other hand, it's likely that Cho was the victim of his chosen course of action. He probably heard plenty of snide remarks behind his back.

It's logical then that as these pressures, and as his loneliness, built up, Cho struggled under the load of stress and started to think and act irrationally. He sought solace, it seems, in movies and on his computer, and it is now obvious, in violent entertainment.

This is a vital clue. That internally he was raging, and his rage was based on the intense frustration of not belonging, not being part, not fitting in. Exacerbating this condition was his own grandiose idea of himself, as a sort of a Christ-like martyr. In his rant he mentions John Lennon and Marilyn Monroe, and one supposes, he attempts to put himself in the same Hall of Fame.

In fact, his attempt to engage with NBC with a carefully constructed (if half-sensical) diatribe does prove that he had something to say, and meant to make himself visible.
I think the burden, the list of imagined transgressions he'd built up in his mind had become so ponderous, he didn't know how or where to start to begin to address it. Then his loneliness and fixations with people (who possibly interpreted his reaching out as creepy or "stalking") amplified the pain he was already feeling.

I am certain he felt betrayed by people he perhaps liked or wanted to engage with, who then turned him in to the police. Then again, in a community where everyone identifies an individual as "that creepy guy", there is very little opportunity for that stereotype to be corrected or altered, either by the individual himself, or by individuals in that community. And so the cycle of disconnection gets reinforced.
Meanwhile, Henry Lee, one of Cho's victims mentioned above, spoke at a formal rewards ceremony about the difficulties he had coming to America and sitting in a classroom, not knowing how to speak English.**

And Lee spoke about the reality of having immigrant parents and being one of many children.
Lee said: "Imagine sitting in class not knowing the language; now I am number two in my class."**

The best or worst is always possible from an individual around us. Family murders happen every day, where a grief-stricken parent takes the lives of a partner and children, people they once loved and cared for.

The responsibility rests on each person to take care of others, to notice and respect those around us, for in that, we take care of those we love, and also ourselves.
(*http://topics.nytimes.com**http://topics.nytimes.com)

And from:
http://www.crimelibrary.com/news/original/0407/1801_stalker_profile.html
Was Cho Seung-Hui a Stalker?

April 18, 2007
BLACKSBURG, Va. (Crime Library) —While there was talk earlier that the V-Tech rampage was sparked by a fight with a girlfriend, nineteen-year-old Emily Hilscher, those who knew the girl vehemently deny she had a relationship with Cho. Yet others say there was certainly an argument, which drew a dorm counselor, Ryan Clark, to come to settle the disturbance (perhaps after Emily had already been shot). Clark, 22, became one of the first two victims, along with Emily.

What's the truth behind these notions? Given what we've heard about Cho from roommates and students in class with him, he was a loner with no real friends. His expression rarely changed, no one ever visited him, and he tended to get ideas about girls — to the point where other boys viewed him as a stalker. In fact, during a rare night out with roommates, they reported, Cho revealed that he had an "invisible girlfriend" who was a "supermodel." He and she even had pet names for each other. So, clearly Cho thought about and desired a girlfriend.

[Yes, and so does just about every other heterosexual male on the planet - Nick]

He also had a vivid fantasy life. And he was controlling and moralistic — all signs of a seriously disturbed person who, under certain circumstances, could become a stalker.

While some people say that Emily, a popular and pretty girl with many friends, knew Cho but had a boyfriend, it doesn't take much to engage the unwanted attention of a stalker. A person can be married and a mother, yet still inspire a stalker. A glance, a smile to be friendly, a kind word — even just crossing his path without noticing him - have all been ingredients in other incidents for the roiling delusions of stalkers. Sometimes a stalker merely sees an image of the target person and soon absorbs that person into a fantasy of control. In his mind, that person is now a pawn in his game and must act as he dictates. But when reality crashes in and the person does not conform to the fantasy, anger can boil over.
Cho Seung-Hui (Virginia State Police)

So, Emily might have known Cho from a class or study group. They might have spoken. Then he could have developed his own ideas about what she meant to him, as well as how she ought to behave. In that case, he could have gone to her dorm on April 16 to confront her about behavior he disliked — especially if he considered it promiscuous (which he despised). The very same thing happened to Rebecca Schaeffer, 21, star of My Sister Sam, when a fan, Robert Bardo, decided she had taken a role in a film that he found morally repugnant. So, in 1989 he went to where she lived and shot her to death.

Cho shot Emily repeatedly before going off to write a rambling note of blame and disapproval, and then shooting 30 other students in another building. Whether or not she had a relationship with him, a friendship, or just a passing acquaintance, he seemed to have ideas about her that provoked rage.

In November and in December of 2005, two separate women complained to police that Cho had been sending them unwanted text messages. In the first instance, the woman declined to press charges and the matter was referred to the Virginia Tech disciplinary board. Results of the disciplinary board are protected by law.

The second instance in December of 2005 came about the same time as concern from a roomate that Cho seemed suicidal. The cumulative effect of the three contacts with the police and the school administration was that Cho on Dec. 15 sent to Access, an independent mental health facility for evaluation. Cho's mental health records were not shared with the police.

Neither of the women who complained about Cho's behavior were victims of the shooting rampage and there were no similar complaints filed about Cho since the incidents in late 2005.

Police still do not know why Cho went to the dormitory and murdered Emily and Ryan, nor do they know why he targeted the Norris building. Specialists are going through his computer and all of his writings looking for clues to why his rage was directed at Emily and Ryan and the individuals attending class in the Norris building.