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Through the haze in China... is more and more haze
It didn't take long for Chinese netizens to get on the case of the brutal Virginia Tech murder. Almost immediately, forum members human flesh searched the killer, Zhu Haiyang, and sussed out his university scores, his QQ number and - most importantly - his blog. While nobody can know for sure why he decapitated 22-year-old Yang Xin in the middle of a public cafe, there are now a few more guesses as to what caused an otherwise affable and studious PhD student to snap.
His last blog entry was written just two weeks before the murder and talked about how he had lost everything in the stock market. He linked to a news story of Adolf Merckle, one of Germany's richest men, who had thrown himself in front of a train on January 5th after losing hundreds of millions of dollars betting against Volkswagon shares.
His comment: "My stocks have also suffered tremendously... to the point where there's no hope for return. Looks like I'm going to have to eat badly for three years. Agricultural economics (Zhu Haiyang's major) doesn't earn much money... and she also makes me feel crazy."
He added, "With the stocks dropping, I've been feeling uneasy lately... to the point where I want to kill someone or commit suicide."
A friend who studied with Zhu Haiyang proposed another theory, saying that Zhu had been stressed out over his grades at the school. He told netizens that Zhu's father was a doctorate in Ningbo and that Zhu was under a lot of pressure to succeed.
A month before the killing, Zhu was still in contact with his high school friends in Shanghai. He told them that lately, no matter how hard he studied, he didn't seem to be getting the grades he needed. If he didn't pass certain exams, the school would stop his scholarship.
In Shanghai, Zhu had earned extremely high marks, scoring 663 out of 677 of the TOEFL, winning first prize in national English competitions and getting exam scores in the high 90s. A journal entry written three weeks after arriving in Virginia was optimistic: “Even though I don't get to sleep until midnight or 1am every day, only to wake up at 6am or 7am, I feel very fulfilled. It's not like in China's graduate programs, where I feel like I'm not learning anything.”
Source: Sina
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His blog address and QQ were provided the first day of reporting by the American press so the Chinese netizen's shouldn't take too much credit for that.
Wow, this generation is really weak compared to what their parents' and grandparents'. Look at what those people had to go through and they are the ones that brought China up.
That's very unfair. You're damning a whole generation based on one tragic story. Get some perspective.
Yeah, this guy lost money. Well, guess what? So did virtually everyone vested in the market. Nearly, everyone lost A LOT of money.
Zhu Haiyang committed the most vicious, perverse, and contemptible sort of crime, and there is no rationalizing or excusing it regardless of the POS's losses. Yes, every killer will have a rational and follow his/her own internal logic. But if you think this is purely related to money, you are gravely mistaken. Zhu Haiyang is a sick animal.
It seems every time there is a heinous crime, "the neighbors" will come forward with statements suggesting that the alleged murderer was a "quiet and normal" individual, when in actuality, they have no idea who their neighbor really was and certainly missed the signals of his/her aberrance.
Whatever the justice system does to Zhu, it cannot be enough and I have zero sympathy.
Zhu doesn't meet the requirements needed to be eligible for the death penalty in Virginia. Therefore life without parole will probably be the end result, or a long stretch in an institution for the criminally insane if his defense lawyers get lucky.
He must have liked Nirvana, let's blame them. Let's blame everything except for the murderer.
Are any Chinese "netizens" organizing a fund for the poor girl's family to cover all the funeral/travel/bureaucratic expenses, etc?
Doubt it.
The blog is fake. Reasons:
1. The blogger's status was published 19 hours ago
Haiyang因为流浪街头，无家可归，被狗咬，损失200枚金币
2. Zhu's photo on the front page was obviously a copy-paste from online report (probably Zhu's student ID photo)
His real blog is on QQ zone
Xin's friends established a page on facebook in memorial of her.