A cultural identity lost in translation

They are known here as the 1.5 generation. Korean-born. Immigrated to America.

They are often not sure where they belong.

It was a 1.5er who unleashed the fusillade of terror at Virginia Tech last week. But in South Korea, where tens of thousands of teenagers and young adults have gone abroad for at least some schooling in this education-obsessed culture, the mayhem felt much closer to home.

Koreans who have studied abroad say they understand the conflicted loyalties that may have torn at Seung-hui Cho. They know what it’s like when non-Asians assume you are Chinese or, if not, then certainly Japanese.

They’ve felt ostracized by second-generation Koreans, who look down on their poorer English skills.

And they wonder whether the strains that accompany trying to straddle two cultures may have contributed to Cho’s psychological detonation.

“My first assumption when I heard the news was that people must have done something bad to him in America,” says Choi Jung-song, 18, sitting in a lounge on the campus of Seoul’s Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. Choi lived in Spain for more than a decade, experiencing the pressures imposed by torn loyalties.

“I had difficulties fitting in growing up,” he says. And he acknowledges being miserable trying to adjust now that he’s back in South Korea.

The Virginia Tech killings underscore one of the little-mentioned social costs of this country’s remarkable focus on educating its children.

Korean families make extraordinary sacrifices to ensure their children are well-schooled, often sending mothers and children abroad while the fathers remain behind to provide for their education.

But exposure to Western culture has also produced cracks in the cultural assumptions of a nation that prides itself on its strong sense of collective identity.

Cho’s murderous spree left many here asking whether he was an American or a Korean killer.

“He wasn’t raised here, he left when he was 8,” says Noh Seung-kyun, a 26-year-old wearing a Detroit Tigers cap and slurping the universal college meal of pot noodle in the university cafeteria. Noh also studied abroad -- accounting in Delaware -- and says Cho’s use of guns points to his immersion in American culture.

“It would be more Korean to kill someone with a knife or a baseball bat or an ashtray even,” Noh says. “The guns show he was influenced by American society.”

But the 1.5ers also say it is unlikely that Cho would have freed himself of all traces of Korean culture. Sitting across from Noh, Kim Jung-hwan, who studied for a year at a middle school in Denver, says Korean roots never fully disappear. “It’s not easy to abandon your national character, no matter how young you are when you leave,” he says.

The initial reaction in Korea to the shootings -- an outpouring of apologies and even fears that Korean American-run businesses and diplomatic relations could be harmed -- showed the collective sense of responsibility felt by many Koreans because of the killer’s ethnicity.

“My first reaction was sort of embarrassment that he was from South Korea,” says Kwon Yea-won, 18, an English literature major sitting with Choi in the lounge. “Koreans just have a stronger sense of nationalism.”

They also feared an anti-Korean backlash. Kwon was attending high school in England during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. She says she saw how the English looked at Muslims differently after that.

But many here acknowledge that worries about an ethnic backlash arose because that is how Koreans respond to crimes committed by foreigners.

“When a GI rapes a Korean woman here, we see it as collective guilt,” Kwon says.

Others note that Cho might have been reluctant to seek help for mental trauma because Korean culture can be harsh on those suspected of mental illness.

“Koreans are very concerned about how other people see them, and they refrain from being open and frank about receiving mental treatment,” says Jun Hyun-suk, 27, a law student at Hankuk. “Some people will show understanding of a person who has psychological problems, but it’s more likely that others will stay away from you. Mental treatment records can stigmatize you forever.”

These young Koreans say that they might reach out to friends if they felt depressed, but that parents and teachers remain remote figures.

“There is a lot of emphasis on the hierarchy of age, so it’s very difficult to be honest or frank with your parents or even more so with your teachers,” says fellow student Lee Sang-hee, 18. “It’s either go to your friends, or you’re alone.”

If there was a benefit to broadcasting Cho’s demented videos to the world, it might be that it offered absolution to those who had initially wondered whether his Korean background had played a role in the mayhem.

“At first I thought this might be a guy who was angry about his nationality, because Koreans can be treated so badly overseas,” Kwon says. But watching Cho’s incoherent rants online from a Seoul Internet cafe, Kwon realized she was watching someone who was sick.

“When I saw the tape, I realized he was mentally ill,” she says. “And then I no longer felt any relation to him just because he was Korean.”

Choi agrees: “It had nothing to do with discrimination or being raised in America. He was just a madman.”

bruce.wallace@latimes.com