THE CICAK.com

AUDIO INTERVIEW: Malaysian Virginia Tech student says Harian Metro fabricated facts in story

By POH SI TENG

The world was horrified when news organizations reported the murderous rampage at Virginia Tech in the United States. The incident took place on Monday, 16 April.

The lone gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, shot and killed 32 students and faculty members with two handguns. Cho later turned the gun on himself.

On Friday, theCICAK spoke to Brendan Chan, 25, a Malaysian engineering graduate student at Virginia Tech. He spoke about ushering students to his office during the shooting and how the campus community is coping with the massacre.

During our conversation, Chan mentioned how one Malaysian newspaper sprinkled “action scenes” into its story.

We also asked Chan whether he was harassed by media because he is Asian and an engineering student.

Brendan: No, it’s just because I’m Malaysian actually. Malaysian media. Haven’t you read the story by our good friends at the Harian Metro? They better keep their story straight.

Sensationalised and dramatised. Think of it as, you take someone’s experiences and you sort of add a little bit with a lot of action scenes, you know. Yeah, you know Malaysian media.

I just pretty much debunk the whole article on ReCom.org. And I told the reporters from the other newspapers, they better get their story straight.

Poh Si: How are you and the other four Malaysian students?

Brendan: How am I? I am good. We’re coping. People, Malaysians here.. I’m grateful that a lot of them are not on campus at that time. I’m happy. I’m happy to be alive but I feel sad for those who lost their lives in this senseless killing because this thing didn’t have to happen. But it happened, now we can ask ourselves what we can do to make things better.

Just sad but things are slowly recovering. They just removed a lot of the police tape around Norris (Hall). The staff a couple of days ago they went into Norris Hall to pick up their stuff and personal artifacts and got out. It was really sad to see the amount of fear they had entering that place.

Photos of increased security on campus by BRENDAN CHAN

Poh Si: Where were you during the shooting?

Brendan: I was in Randolph Hall, right opposite Norris Hall. And it was crazy. You hear shots being fired from the building across from yours, yeah.

We were in a lock-down, so we all had to stay inside. All I did was just ask the other students still in the lobby, if they need a place to hide, they can hide in my office.

Poh Si: What were your thoughts when word was out that the killer was Asian?

Brendan: No, we really didn’t want to speculate because the investigation was pending. So you really didn’t know what was wrong, what was right, what could be a mix-up, that kind of stuff. I mean rumours were flying around everywhere. We just waited for the news pretty much, before we made any speculation.

Poh Si: Do you expect any hostility or backlash?

Brendan: Right now, I haven’t felt any effect of this presumably expected backlash per se. I mean I really don’t see the effect that… I think the community around me understands, at least the ones around me understands that the actions of one individual doesn’t constitute the actions of an entire ethnicity.

When I said I attended the vigil, there was a lot of people, not just Virginia Tech students. There were faculty, there were residents of Blacksburg, residents of Christiansburg, everyone was there. And none of them were hostile. I saw a lot of Asians there. In my opinion, it’s the same town, the same Virginia Tech that I came to on the first day that I was here.

I’m just glad that we are all, Malaysians were safe. And looking forward to rebuilding, here in Virginia Tech.

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POH SI TENG is the director and co-founder of theCICAK.

Poh Si came to the United States in search of free speech and expression. Last summer, she interned as a science reporter at The Columbus Dispatch in Ohio. She has written for the Oakland Tribune, the Vallejo Times-Herald, the Duluth News Tribune and the New Straits Times in Malaysia. She will be interning as a multimedia producer at The Virginian-Pilot this summer and The Miami Herald in the fall. Visit her site.