Chinese woman cited for rescuing US campus students

Source: People's Daily | 04-23-2007 16:30

Special Report:   Deadliest US college massacre

A Chinese woman assistant professor, or rather a doctoral student at the college of engineering at Virginia Tech, has shed a light onto the campus shooting rampage on April 16, which claimed a toll of 33 lives (including that of the gunman himself). In the past two days, a wise Chinese middle-age lady has been featured in American media, and her name is Haiyan Cheng, who, calm and composed, rescued the lives of students in her class at an extremely precarious situation. When her story was released and publicized, many Americans admired her courage from their bottom of hearts, "Really great, the Chinese."

April 16 was a murky day at Virginia Tech when Seung-hui Cho, a young South Korean student, drenched the university compass in bloodbath. In Classroom 206, when students of civil engineering were having their lesson, their professor fell in blood. In Room 207, a German lesson was in session, 10 of a dozen students were shot and killed, in Room 211, a French lesson was in session, there were about 15 casualties out of the 20 students at the class and their professor was massacred ¡­

Meanwhile, in Room 205, the whole class still retained intact as Haiyan Cheng, the assistant professior, was filling in for the professor, who was away at a conference.

Cheng, now in her late 30s and the mother of one daughter, came to the United States from the city of Hohhot, northern China in 1998. She obtained a Master's degree in Applied Mathematics from Michigan Technological University and a Master's degree in Computer Science from the University of Windsor, Canada. She is now working on her PH.D at the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech and concurrently serves as an assistant professor.

Cheng arrived at the campus oft Virginia Tech earlier as usual that day (April 16). Her class started at nine o"clock sharp am and went into her office to at 8:50 am to check her emails. When she went into her class at about 9 am, an unexpected tragedy occurred all of sudden shortly afterwards.

In an interview with the "Washington Post", she recalled: "At 9:40 am, or 15 minutes before the end of my class, I heard the loud banging outside, very loud outside the classroom, but I could hardly tell where the banging came from, but one thing was certain that we were very close to the source of the banning. I mistook it as construction noise at first. Then came silence, a ten-minute silence, and more pops followed as I turned to the next subject..."

A female student sitting at the front row was curious and rose to look around to see what was happening. Chen and that female student went to the door and peered out. It turned out that queer sounds came from Room 208, but no abnormity so far could be seen as its door kept closed. All of a sudden, they saw a man emerge from Room 208 across the hall. He was holding a gun, but it was pointed down. This gave her a start. At this moment, two boy students rushed out from corridors, and the gunman gunned down them immediately. two bullets flashing past Cheng's ears, and they quickly shut the door.