There are moments in life that we simply can't explain and completely feel helpless, and thus overwhelmingly sense existance of a supernatural being that may look down on our earthly lives and guide those to detined places. Surely none of victims or those enrolled in Virginia Tech University on early Monday morning last week would've foreseen or even guessed in their wildest dreams that an atrocity such as the one occurred on that day would've taken place on the supposed-to-be a holy ground of an academia. According to aftermath statements from some survivors and witnesses, many experienced a strong disbelief even when they faced the terrorizing scene under their own eyes and fiercing sounds of ammunitions flying right by/penetrating through their bodies. One survivor from a German class in which the shooter entered and fired at students and a professor therein said, he couldn't still believe his own eyes until he felt one of his ears was penerated by a flying bullet and started to bleed, even then, he continued to imagine/think, the blood pouring down from his ear and the body on top of him felt like a ketup-like substance, just like the one used in any ordinary hollywood films.
In the amid of doomed chaos, still a reel of fortune or a destined path laid by a supernational being - or whatever it may be called - divided the fates of those therein. How ironic! Some survived by pretending dead when the shooter walked around nearby bodies of their friends, some survived by their prof holding off the door to prevent the shooter from entering the room, etc.
Among the stories from survivors, the most intriguing of all was regarding Liviu Librescu, a professor who survived the holocaust during WWII. Apparently, he gave up his life in order to secure more time for his students to flee from the scene. In a message by one of thousands of mourners for Dr. Librescu, an anonymous writer wrote that Dr. Librescu survived the holocaust and lived for sixty something more years only for this day (to sacrifice himself so as to save others).
It won't be much of anybody's surprise that he was thinking of, if he had any chance to think of anything then, the rampaged strikes reminded him much of events he would've experienced during the war as a holocaust victim and psychological debt he might hadtoward other Jew victims of the war who were not fortunate enough to survive through the dark tunnel of the time. And this caused him to decide to stand against the evil, once he feared and ran away from. There is not doubt that he was a brave man and was the one who shone us the light among the dark.
Now, talking about the dark side of the event, the shooter Choi, known as a Korean American immigrated when he was still a child. Most of those who had been acquainted with him at some point of their lives recalled him as a very introverted child who never bother to make an effort to engage with anybody, and more than that, even rather reluntant to do so. Trying to understand what would have been going through his mind at the time of massacre may be beyond our capability, obviously even his own family, according to the statement released by his sister, didn't notice the eerie darkness that has dwelled in him until the moment of the massacre. Well,,, whether those who knew him could've guessed the date of massacre coming or not may not be the most important issue here. The significance is there were people who thought something was snapped in him and his behaviors bazzed, sometimes even threatening, but decided to let him be there alone, knowing that he was not capable of dealing with the devil inside all alone.
Of course, the issues with gun-control in the US, and the NRA's role therein have been a great concern, and perhaps is the priority we need to talk about at this moment, but personally, I rather welcome that people make an effort to look inside of the shooter's psychological state and any social/cultural environments that may have influenced him, because hate crimes, which doers do not fear to take their own lives, do usually take more delicate and complicated origins than controlling tools of conducts, in this case, a 9-mm gun and another handgun Choi used.
An interesting point here occurred from observing the incident and its aftermath is the reaction from Korean government and people therein, not to mention of those from Koreans residing in the US. Korea's strong attachment to its fellow countrymen abroad has been well known dispite diplomatic misconducts of failing to protect them on an occasional basis. The case concerning Choi wasn't an exception and most Koreans expressed their sincere consolation to the US.
Articles from major daily newspapers in the US including the Washington Post and and the NYT repeated cleared that the shooting by an individual is nobody's responsibility. But it seemed that it was nation-wide heartfelt consolation from Korea that drew the condolation and a sort of redemption to other fellow Koreans in the US.
