조 씨 가족은 가난해서 어렵게 시작했다. 조 씨의 어머니는 자기보다 10살이나 많은 남자인 조성태 씨와 결혼하도록 강요받았다. 조성태 씨 역시 남쪽의 가난한 집안의 아들이었지만, 사우디 아라비아 건설현장에서 10년 동안 일해 돈을 벌어왔다. 향임 씨는 북한 지주의 교육을 잘 받은 가족의 딸이었으나, 이들은 한국전쟁 당시 남쪽으로 피난을 와야 했다. 양순 씨는 “향임이가 결혼을 원치 않았지만, 나중에는 포기했다”고 말했다.
가족 중 누구도 버지니아 공대 총격사건을 암시했을지 모르는 폭력적인 행동을 조 씨로부터 기억하지 못한다. 그러나 이들은 조 씨의 음울함을 걱정했었다. “외손자는 아주 어렸을 때도 숫기가 없었고 다른 손자들처럼 내 품에 안긴 적이 없다”고 외할아버지인 김형식 씨가 한겨레신문과의 인터뷰에서 말했다. “걔가 말을 못하는 것 아닌가 생각했었다”. 급우들도 조 씨가 조용했다고 지역 미디어에 말했다.
그러나 아버지는 아이들을 사랑했다. “아버지가 아이들에게 무슨 짓을 했을 리는 없다”고 외할아버지가 말했다. “하지만, 이런 일이 이제 일어났고, 부모들이 한 모든 것, 부모들이 존재한 이유가 없는 것 같다”
조 씨 가족은 1992년 미국으로 이주했다. 비자를 받기 위해 8년을 기다리면서, 돈이 떨어졌다. 이들은 헌책방과 집을 팔아 수지를 맞췄다. 이들은 떠나기 전에 향임 씨의 가족을 방문했고, 이 때가 외조부모가 그를 두 번째로 본 때였다. 양순 씨는 조 씨가 “걔를 불러도 대답을 안 했었어요. 너무 조용해서 굉장히 순한 아이일 거라고 말했었지요. 하지만, 걔 엄마는 승희가 너무 조용하다고 말했어요. 이들이 미국에 가고 나서 얼마 지나지 않아, 승희는 의학적으로 자기 속으로 틀어박혔다는 진단을 받았지요. 걔가 대학에 갔다는 것만도 놀랄만한 일이에요. 태어날 때부터 정신적인 문제가 있었을 거예요.”
조 씨 가족은 미국에서 열심히 일했다. 아버지는 아이들의 학비를 벌기 위해 세탁소에 일했다. 어머니는 파트타임 웨이트리스로 일했고 센터빌에 있는 한인교회에 다녔다. 조 씨가 버지니아 공대에 입학했을 때 어머니는 기숙사 친구들을 한 쪽으로 데려가 조 씨의 성격을 얘기해 주고 도와줄 것을 부탁했다고 한다. “조 씨 어머니는 승희가 컴퓨터 게임의 세계에 빠져서 방에서만 시간을 보낸다고 걱정했어요”라고 신문사가 한인교회 목사를 인용해 보도했다. “조 씨는 몇 년 동안 성경공부 모임에도 왔지만, 거의 말을 하지 않았고 다른 젊은이들이랑 사이좋게 지내지도 않았지요”
양순 씨는 “걔가 말을 했었으면 하고 바랄 뿐이에요. 한국에는 말을 하지 않는 사람들이 자신을 죽이게 된다는 말이 있지요. 바로 이게 분노가 쌓이게 되면 일어나는 일입니다”
The brooding silence of Cho Seung-hui was so impenetrable it disturbed his family even when he was growing up in South Korea, relatives of the Virginia killer told the Guardian yesterday. His grandfather feared that at the age of eight he might be mute; the boy's great aunt worried that he had mental problems. And his mother, Kim Hyang-im, spent much of her time in church praying for him to snap out of his unhealthy taciturnity.
"She was heartbroken," said his mother's aunt, Kim Yang-soon. "After they moved to America, she hoped his silences would ease as he grew older. But in fact they got worse."
The poor family had a difficult start. Cho's mother was forced into an arranged marriage with a man 10 years her senior - Cho Sung-tae, who came from a poor family in the south but had worked in Saudi Arabia for 10 years on construction sites and oilfields. Hyang-im was from a well-educated family of North Korean landowners who had fled during the Korean war. "She didn't want to marry, but she gave in," said Yang-soon.
No one in the family recalls any violent behaviour from Cho that might have hinted at later carnage. But they were unnerved by his sullenness. "My grandson was shy even as a little boy and he would never run to me like my other grandchildren," his maternal grandfather, Kim Hyong-shik, told the Hankyoreh Daily. "I thought he might be deaf and dumb." Schoolmates told local media they remembered Cho as quiet.
But the father doted on his children. "He would have done anything for them," the grandfather said. "But now this has happened. It's as if everything they've done, the reason for their whole existence has been for nothing."
The family moved to the US in 1992. During their eight-year wait for a visa, they fell short of money, selling their second-hand shop and home to make ends meet. They had visited Hyang-im's family before they left, an occasion that was only the second time the grandparents had seen Cho. Yang-soon said of the boy: "He would not talk even when I called to him. He was so quiet I remarked he must have a very gentle nature. But his mother told me he was too quiet. Soon after they got to America, he was diagnosed as being clinically withdrawn. It amazes me he ever [got] into university. I guess he must have had some mental problems from birth."
Cho's family worked hard in the US. His father worked in a laundry, to fund his children's education. His mother, a part-time waitress, attended the Korean church in Centreville, where she implored the pastor to help her son. When Cho started at Virginia Tech, his mother took his dormitory mates to one side to explain his character and asked them to help. "She was worried that he spent all his time in his room, lost in a world of video games," the paper quoted the pastor as saying. "[Cho] came to bible studies for a couple of years, but rarely spoke and never got along with the other youths."
"I just wish he would have talked," said Yang-soon. "There is an old saying in Korea that people who won't talk will end up killing themselves. That is what happens when the resentment builds up."