Cho Seung-Hui’s Parents Hospitalized

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Cho Seung-Hui’s Parents Hospitalized

by John Little on 18/04/2007

Assuming that nothing horrific about his past comes to light I guess you can add his parents to the long list of secondary victims:

The parents of mass killer Cho Seung-hi were hospitalised with shock and had not attempted suicide, contrary to reports in Korean media.

Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that Cho’s parents, who ran a dry cleaning shop in Centreville, Virginia, had been hospitalised after learning of ther son’s killing rampage at Virginia Tech University.

Rumours earlier spread through Korean media sources that Cho’s parents had attempted suicide.

I can’t imagine what goes through the minds of parents whose children do things like this. It’s obviously difficult and their reaction points to the huge impact these events have beyond the immediate killed and wounded. Countless other lives have been and will continue to be destroyed by this.

While I’m sure that people would love to rush to conclusions about his childhood this behaviour is not always rooted in abuse or childhood trauma. I’m just not going to speculate on any role his family relationships may have played in all of this.

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There are 20 comments in this article:

18/04/2007Barbara says:

NBC has just announced that they have received a package from Cho Seung-Hui with pictures and a dairy of what he was planning to do.
19/04/2007aquaeyes says:

thank you for realizing that his family is a victim in this. it is sometimes hard to recognize mental illness – especially if you are not well educated in what to look for. what i hope though is that people start to realize mental illness is a disease that haunts the person who has it and we need to do more for the mentally ill in this country. for the narrow-minded who choose to shun those outside the box if all of us are like this then sadly tragedies like this can occur again. for those who are examining this from a perspective that he is korean – i feel sorry for you and i hope that you are never in a a minority position as i fear you may not have the strength to handle it.
19/04/2007Mason says:

Are you serious aquaeyes? His parents are a victim? They should be punished for not addressing the warning signs. And if it turns out that they abused him as his writings suggest they should be jailed.
19/04/2007Smithy says:

Mason, you’re an idiot. It could be possible that his parents did not see all of the warning signs. And they probably were trying to get him some help. But when you’re 23 years old and you are living on your own, your parents can’t control all of your actions. If you want to blame someone, you should be blaming the school. They obviously knew that he had mental problems- they should have thrown him out of school and gotten his parents more involved in his well-being. As for his writings, I wrote a play about being a drug-addicted prostitute. Does that make me one? NO so you can’t deduce that they abused him all through childhood. He was a psycho but his parents are not. Don’t pin all of this on them.
19/04/2007superman says:

I agree with smith,His parents had nothing to do with this, his sister graduated from Princeton and dont get me wrong but right now we should pray for those students. frustrates me is that the American media is at a risk of politicizing the crime by overemphasizing the fact that the murderer was a “South Korean immigrant.” The issue is not that he’s Korean or Korean American…fact is, he was (1)mentally ill, (2)no one picked up on the warning signs, (3)the US has loose gun control laws, (4)the school did not alert the students in an appropriate manner…and the list goes on and on.
19/04/2007Liz Mackey says:

Tough shit on them what kind of parents were they?? Come on they are NOT victims, they had to know there was a problem with their ugly son of a bitch chinko son! Glad he killed himself, too bad he had to kill innocent wonderful people!! May the bastard rot in HELL and also his whole family rot in HELL!!! His parents are just as bad as those Columbine parents!!
19/04/2007smithy says:

Liz, you’re a bigger idiot than Mason. You’re a typical ignorant bitch. “Chinko” is a derogatory term for a Chinese person, and this man was not Chinese, you jackass. And the fact that you even use the term shows how unintelligent you are. And you want his parents to rot in hell? How would you like it if someone said that about your parents? After all, they’re not to blame for producing a dumbass like yourself!
20/04/2007pianobaby says:

I agree with smithy that Liz’s comment was entirely inappropriate. The issue here has nothing to do with race but rather mental illness. Please don’t stereotype, as it hurts those who are the victims of the stereotyping as well as showcases your own ignorance. And as for his parents, unless we are provided with more information about Cho’s childhood and upbringing, we will never know whether they played a significant role in forming Cho’s personality.
20/04/2007rainer says:

quite unfortunate that there are individuals such as mason & liz who cannot but display their own ugliness and base understanding.

as a korean-american, this is exactly what i feared. and beyond that, this has *absolutely nothing* to do with race. obviously this young man was damaged beyond repair.

it is most likely that cho’s parents had no way of either knowing or adequately dealing with the extreme depths of their son’s illness. if demographics are going to figure into the picture, studies have shown that yes, asians are typically the last to acknowledge and deal with mental illness. it’s a cultural thing.

also, there are laws in the u.s. that do not allow universities to contact parents about mental health issues without the consent of the student in question, if this person is of legal age.

and lastly, his parents were probably just hard-working people who emigrated to the states for a better life. but they brought their son to a country where anyone can buy a handgun at the local gun shop & ammo at wal-mart, and also where ignorant people such as liz told him to go back to china when he couldn’t speak well in a high school english class. (liz – do some geography, china and korea are different countries, dear). anyhow, the parents are suffering enough. they need to be left out of this. their lives are destroyed.

let’s hope for a more enlightened conversation in the public. maybe about the problem of violence in america and the weakass gun laws, or perhaps how our laws & culture deal – or don’t – with mental illness. just a few suggestions to start.

but thanks for this news. i pray for the victims, cho’s parents included.
20/04/2007avenger says:

Wasn’t Cho mocked for his accent and told to “go back to China”. Liz, I guess people like you simply brought it on to yourselves.
20/04/2007Eli says:

Christ, You retards need to shut up! Stop blaming the parents! I’m pretty sure they tried everything possible to help their son. I hope you all learned something from all this. It’sad to see that while families are in mourning, there are also idiots out there who want to blame shit on the parents…have some respect!!!
20/04/2007smithy says:

I agree, this is NOT a racial or a parental issue. It’s a mental health issue. Let’s try feeling sympathetic to all the families involved, including Cho’s family. This is a horrible incident and should teach all of us something about taking care of ourselves and each other, not about blaming or spiting other people. It’s sad the this is bringing out the worst in some people. Ignorance and racism should not be in this equation.
23/04/2007X: THC says:

Question Marks…

“This didn’t have to happen”, Cho Seung-Hui said, after brutally murdering thirty-two people at Virginia Tech University.

And this terrible tragedy of sons, daughters, mothers and fathers didn’t have to happen, if we’d only listened.

But we never listen.

We never listen to those that are different from us- the outcasts, the lonely, the homeless, the ones that are unspoken for. We don’t try to understand. We shun them and put them out of our minds because of our fear that we will become like them.

And these people become more and more lonely and alienated in their isolation.

Words like “creep”, “deranged misfit” and “psycho” devalue this killer’s humanity so we don’t have to face how similar he is to us. Cries of “how could he have been stopped” are uttered by media quick to sensationalize and gain market share, when the words “how could he have been listened to” are never considered.

Because we don’t want to listen.

We don’t want to hear about loneliness and alienation when we’re all so busy with our lives, making money and making friends. And the unpopular, the ones that don’t fit in, the lonely ones are ignored or made fun of because we don’t care to understand anything about them.

As a boy, Cho Seung-Hui “was picked on, pushed around and laughed at over his shyness” (Associated Press). When he started college, according to the Guardian, “his mother took his dormitory mates to one side to explain about her son’s unusual character and implored them to help.”

And he clearly needed help, devaluing himself so much that he called himself “Question Mark”.

There are more “Question Marks” out there. There are millions of them. And if we don’t listen to them, they will follow the same path again and again, because people are not connecting. We are becoming more and more disconnected from each other, creating more and more “Question Marks” every day.

Most “Question Marks” don’t become murderers. Some just kill themselves. Most harm no one and live just as we do, needing antidepressants to appear what we call “normal”. They may be someone you know, someone you love.

This “Question Mark” was once a little boy, who cried, and smiled and loved, He wanted to fit in just like you and I. But that desire to fit in transformed itself into anger towards a society that shunned and ignored him.

How many more times will we shun and ignore the one that doesn’t fit in, the one in the corner, the one that’s different? When all we have to do is listen, before it’s too late.

But we won’t.

Thirty-two human beings who did not know Cho Seung-Hui were murdered.
They were sons, daughters, fathers and mothers, with dreams of futures that will never come and children that will never be born. The thirty-two leave behind people that love them. People that are now scarred for life by this horrible day of death.

To most of us that have not been directly involved, this tragedy will become a memory and fade like all the others that came before.

And the “Question Marks” will appear with more frequency, again and again, because we don’t listen.

We never do.

—————

http://www.x-thc.com
23/04/2007chris says:

1. He was 23 years old and not living at home. Unlike the Columbine killers who were minors living at home and had to buy guns through an older friend.

2. Parents of minor children are by law responsible for the kids’ behavior. If the children see a doctor or mental health specialist, the parents must be informed or involved. The opposite is true for a 23-yr-old—-he had been FIVE years from being under parental control.

3. He sounds like Hickley’s situation (man who shot President Reagan). Very sullen, quiet, unexpressive, cheerless, isolated. Just like Hickley’s parents didn’t see the potential for violence, neither did Cho’s. In fact, Hickley was seeing a psychiatrist, who ALSO didn’t see the potential for violence. And Hinkley’s parents were better informed and educated, and far wealthier. These are immigrants who come here to press pants from 8 am to 10 pm for a living. If Hinkley’s psychiatrist couldn’t predict violence, one can hardly blame these overworked uneducated parents.
30/04/2007abracadabra says:

unfortunately it is the ignorant, ugly spirited people like mason and liz that will forever help in the cultivation of these lost and damaged souls.
30/04/2007Emily says:

A few years ago in Korea, a couple of American soldiers ran over two Korean middle school girls. The soldiers were in a huge army tank and couldn’t see the girls, sadly they were killed.
Although this was purely an accident, the Koreans were all up in arms and President Bush had to make a public speach and apologize to Korea.
I think the Korean president should also apologize…
1/05/2007Teri says:

I will pray for his family. They also deserve our prayers, no matter what they knew or not.

This should be a wake up call for those in the healthcare system. This is what happens when we try and cut costs, don’t provide proper mental healthcare, etc…. Let’s all save more money, while we are dumping unlimited funds to a war that should have never happened…. We were not attacked by the nation we invaded….

Wake up and smell the garbage… Please take care of our own… And our priority should be mental health in our healthcare system. There are people out there (like Cho) that need our help and might not even know it. Then there are those who KNOW they need our help, but don’t have insurance. There are also those out there that are scared to go for treatment because it will go on their record.

So, what do we do?? In the meantime, we need more funding for those who have mental health problems.

Or we can just ignore the problem and blame the parents, blame guns, and everything else but the root of the problem….sit on our couch and eat bon-bons….until the next shooting or terror attack and we can start all over… OR we can get off our butts and do something about our mental healthcare system…

What will you do?? In the meantime, I will pray for the parents and you are more than welcome in my home…sleeplessn2006@yahoo.com
1/05/2007Smithy says:

Emily, you’re another idiot. I think your parents should apologize for giving birth to you, jackass.
6/08/2007CHO RETURN says:

Emily, let me educate you more. The President/Prime Minister and THE ENTIRE KOREAN COUNTRY ALL TROUGHOUT THE WORLD APOLOGIZED FOR CHO, AND THEY DID THAT WITHOUT ANYBODY “DEMANDING” AN APOLOGY FROM THEM. THEY DID THAT WITH THEIR OWN FREE WILL AND WAS REMARKABLE.

You dont see any other non-ASIANS minority groups that united for saying “sorry” for a member of their race. You’d actually see those non-Asian minorities defending the crimes that their cohorts commited and calling everybody racist against their crime.

About President Bush apologizing for the two military guys, THAT IS HIS JOB — HE IS THEIR COMMANDER IN CHIEF. They were there in Korea as a military presence, they need to conduct themselves at the highest professional standard as a representative of America.

CHO never was a military man. CHO moved to America at 8 years of age and has not gone back to Korea for the past 15 years, learning and absorbing AMERICAN culture atits worst and have become a victim of AMERICAN HATRED HIMSELF. HE WAS MORE AMERICAN THAN KOREAN, HE IS HUMAN AS MUCH AS YOU, CAPABLE BOTH OF CARE FOR PEOPLE, OR HATE.
14/01/2009juliet shinoda says:

FIRST THE FUCK OFF, it’s the parents fault for not taking proper care of cho…letting the school abuse and other hurtful shit that he dealt with still occur. i am sorry that they were so ‘shocked’ but i do not pity them. forget about it. sorry, i just can’t grasp how any *decent* parent couldn’t see what their son was dealing with inside.

was he insane? debatable. maybe he just was tired of being lonely.

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