So Far From The Bamboo Grove (2008) - Plot & Excerpts
So Far from the Bamboo Grove was spectacular! This memoir reminds me much of the story of Anne Frank because of both of their inner-self. If I were to be in Anne Frank's or Yoko Kawashima(the main character in So Far From The Bamboo Grove) and I was in the middle of World War II going on and I have to travel from one place to another, I would be with my family, but I wouldn't be in the same home I have lived, grew up, and created memories in; I would be in a place that was half-comfortable to me. For instance, if I were to be sleeping in a bed, or no bed at all, it wouldn't feel like "home" to me because I've adjusted myself to be sleeping in a caved in bed with white sheets and a crazy pattern-like bedding, but to be taking that away from me is a struggle to get use to and if I was known to have my mom make food for me and take care of me and love me, it changes when you are in a struggle to survive if you were just a 12 year old girl who only knew little about surviving as an escapee/refugee. I could tell throughout the memoir that the Yoko, the main character, developed herself as a character by her needs and just her dialogue in general! From time in the book, Yoko was happy, but for silly things a rich person would think was completely nothing; silly objects like food, money, and a home. Yoko had transparent emotions, even though it was secretly hiding through a blanket of words. What really took me was when Yoko started going to school in Japan right after they (Ko, Mother and Yoko)came back from Korea; the city they were in was Fukuoka, Japan. "She turned to me. 'For your cleaning assignment today you will be part of the group that does this room.' Then she placed me in a back seat. I felt desperately unhappy and out of place with these girls in their fine clothes. All had long hair, some in braids. Then a man teacher came in, a history teacher, it turned out. I had no books, no pencil or paper, but I listened. Loneliness attacked me again and I sniffed back tears. I could not wait for school to be over so that I could get back to the station, where I belonged, with Mother and Ko. After class, I had to linger for my cleaning assignment. Some of the girls, as they went out, tossed papers into a wastepaper basket. This gave me an idea and I examined the basket. The papers were crumpled, but many had little writing and all were blank on one side. I picked them up and smoothed the wrinkled sheets. I looked for a pencil too, but there was none. 'You want more paper?' a girl asked. She made an airplane with a piece of notebook paper and aimed at me. The others laughed. I bit my lip, but I did not shed tears when it flew, for collecting papers was a lot easier than looking for food in trash cans. Trying to ignore the girls, I unfolded the airplane and smoothed the wrinkles. There were six of us left to do the cleaning assignment. I had no dustcloth so I asked a girl with a broom if I could sweep, and she shoved the broom at me and walked off. As I swept and came near the girls who were dusting, they scattered, as if I were carrying contagion. If they had gone through what we had experienced, I thought, they would be compassionate. They just don't know! Tears came again as I swept. I longed not only for Mother and Ko but for Father and Hideyo." paragraph six, seven, and eight from page 95 and paragraph one, two, and three from page 96 in So Far From the Bamboo Grove. In these paragraphs(in quotes), I could react to the pain Yoko was going through (because with all the travelling and hiding your true identity and other elements that were obvious in the text) because if I were to be caught up in the "drama" with the girls that were bullying me about my appearence, it would hurt me because of knowing what such I went through. If I were to be one of the girls and I was looking Yoko up and down in her torn-like, poor clothes, I would know to be supportive of her, just by her appearence. In Yoko's point of view, her older sister, Ko, can be harsh most of the time and bossy, but what comes out of that is even more. "My legs became numb. I whined, 'I can't walk anymore.' 'You've got to,' Ko said bluntly, 'Don't talk, just walk!' She was getting very bossy." The first two dialogues on page 38 of So Far From The Bamboo Grove. "And then Ko yelled, 'Stay where you are!' She was hopping back on the ties as easily as if she were jumping rope. She had no pack on her back. When she reached us she turned around, bent over and said to me, 'Hop on.' I put myself on her back and locked my arms around her neck. 'Don't choke me, Little One,' said Ko, and coughed. I turned my head toward Mother, and the smile she gave me spoke worlds." At the bottom of page 39 and top of page 40. Those harsh and demanding words took more loving action than the Anti-Japenese Communist Army's similar words. It really means that if you yell and demand something at a person you love and want to survive and do well in life, the words are worth something and it's for the "person that is listening's" sake. It just shows that they (Ko, in this case) believes that whoever they are talking to (Yoko) can make it (Yoko can win the fight for survival). How Yoko thinks of Mother is that she is more gentle and Yoko herself can know that she has her Mom there by her side and that she isn't completely alone. "'I have learned about good schools,' Mother said. 'I'll take you there tomorrow.' 'I have no clothes!' I protested. 'And look at my shoe, ripped open. I don't want to go to school!' I was going to school, she told me, to learn and to become and educated person. I did not need to decorate myslef." The second paragraph on page 92 in So Far From The Bamboo Grove. Again, this little conversation symbolized love. If Mother hadn't said those words and put it in a gentle form, then Yoko wouldn't have felt loved and she wouldn't have known that her Mother cares about her and her future. Mother would have had a clue about Yoko leading a normal life once more again and think that Yoko, and Ko, would be the future.Yoko Kawashima sets a tone for herself throughtout the book. In the beginning of the book, she set herself as a person that did her work and was a good person, but once the Anti-Japenese Communists came through Japan, attitudes and emotions changed for Yoko, Ko, and Mother. Ko started to get more bossy; Yoko began to feel more saddness inside and lonliness, and basically she felt new to the new unknown world that the family was going through, but to me, and maybe Yoko, Mother seemed like she was use to the action of being an escapee. It felt like she knew how it was to be alone, and gentle when people are at their worst, and everything that falls in between. Then there was Hideyo, the Honorable Brother of Yoko and I assume yonger brother of Ko. Hideyo was all by himself from ecaping from Japan to Korea, then from Korea back to Japan. He was more alone than ever. He didn't have a family to be with and no one to be able to talk to. Also to mention, he was traveling, towards the end of the book, in heavy snow and fell unconscious and ended to live with a temporary family. After explaining to the family that he had to go find his real family, he set out to locate any lving or word-by-word clue of finding his Mother (who was dead at the time) and his two sisters. All on his own, with the help of a letter stabbed onto a bulletin board that was written by his little sister, Yoko, he found his way back to them. Captivating and Ispiring to have a character like him able to live life on his own for over a year.Do you remember when I mentioned the similar or duplicate character of Yoko Kawashima? If not, her name was Anne Frank. They both were very similar in character, and also in traditions. Although in Anne Frank's Diary, she doesn't mention much of her traditions as Yoko does in spots of chapters, but there is little to compare and contrast. Compare: 1) On each of their New Year's Eve/Day, both cultures prepare a type of feast and/or colorful food to celebrate the new year to come. 2) Anne and Yoko's traditions are similar in the reasons of dance. At a get-together/performance/special occasion, festival, or even a wedding, there are traditional dances that are an act of a welcoming (mood) or any other act of a sign. 3) Both characters have or use calligraphy in their lives.Contrast: 1) Both main characters have different religions. Anne Frank follows the Judaism religion when Yoko Kawashima most likely would follow the Buddhism or Shinto religion. So it would be obvious that beliefs and doings would be a difference. 2) For the men in a Jewish religion (Anne Frank), where the Kippah which is a type of head dressing that would be worn whenever is possible. For the women in Japan (Yoko Kawashima), they where kimonos for religious reasons or/and traditional reasons. Overall, I liked this book, and I loved how all the siblings reunited at the end of the novel, but what really saddened me was that the Mother had passed away and the Father never returned (in the book) from Manchuria, and as well as the refugees that were minorly explained in the memoir, but mainly... outstanding writing and a work of art. -Kajal Patel
So Far From the Bamboo Grove tells the story of an 11 year old Japanese girl, Yoko Kawashima, who had lived in Nanam in North Korea all her life; in fact, she had never even seen her homeland Japan.But now, towards the end of the war, Yoko, her mother and older sister Ko are warned by a friend, Corporal Matsumura, that things are not going well and they must try to return to Japan immediately. With Mr. Kawashima, a Japanese diplomat, away in Manchuria, China, and their 18 year old brother Hideyo working elsewhere, Yoko, Ko and their mother leave their home in the middle of the night, taking only what they could carrying. The corporal had been able to secure them places on a hospital train bound for Seoul, where they hoped to find passage on a ship to Japan. Hideyo had wanted to join the Japanese army when he learned that the war was no longer going well for them. But he is rejected by the army and placed in a factory in another part of Korea to make munitions for the Japanese army. When the war ends, he also finds it necessary to flee and the book is split between the difficulties he meets on his journey with that of the Kawashima women.The women are able to board the train to Seoul using a letter from Corporal Matsumura, but when the train is bombed 45 miles away from that city, they are forced to walk the rest of the way. Not long after they start walking, the women are stopped by three armed Korean Communist Army soldiers. But when planes fly over and bomb the area they are in, the soldiers are killed. The women take their uniforms, and because they speak fluent Korean, pass themselves off as Koreans for much of their journey. However, the bombs left Yoko with a painfully injured chest.Eventually, the women make it to Seoul, where Yoko was fortunate enough to have her chest taken care of at the makeshift Japanese hospital. Ko minds their place in a train station, and must constantly scrounge around for food, while Yoko and her mother remain at the hospital. When Yoko is able to travel, once again manage to get places on a train, this time to Pusan, where they must await passage on a ship to Japan. But when Yoko arrives in Japan, it is not the beautiful, comforting, welcoming place she had always dreamt it would be. Japan is now a defeated country, reeling from the two atomic bombs that had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is little food and great destruction, and no welcome for the new influx of refugees returning home. Once again, they find themselves living in a train station and scrounging in the garbage of others for food to survive. So Far from the Bamboo Grove is a compelling, well-written story, detailing how the Kawashima women survive by their wits and much luck. It is a coming of age story, in which Yoko goes from a whining, complaining 11 year old to stronger, and more mature 12 year old girl. Unfortunately, it is a story not without some controversy. While most people like the book, it has created quite a bit of resentment among Koreans and Korean Americans, who feel that the atrocities committed in Korea during the Japanese occupation was basically ignored and that some of the facts in the book are distorted. Koreans were portrayed as rather barbaric, and there is even the intimation of a Japanese woman being raped by a Korean man. Because of this, in 2006, the book was removed from the reading list for 6th graders at the Dover-Sherborn Middle School in Massachusetts, but was later out back on it. The school decided to find other books that would give the story of Japan occupation in Korea some balance. Which reminded me of When My Name was Keoko. Both books are based on the true experiences of young girls who lived through the war in Korea. Their stories are very different, but read in tandem, the two books do offer a more balanced historical context on this controversial time and that is how I would recommend reading them.This book is recommended for readers age 12 and up.This book was purchased for my personal library.Ironically, Yoko Kawashima Watkins received The Courage of Conscience Award from the Peace Abby in Sherborn, Massachusetts, despite the controversy surrounding her story.
What do You think about So Far From The Bamboo Grove (2008)?
The theme for this book is taking place around the time of the vietnam war. When Japan is under attack by korien gorillas, Japanese families spring to action. 11 year old Yoko Kawshima is on the run for her birth Place, Japan. She is running with her mother and sister on voyage to safety. Yoko had long beutiful, black hair, as well as her mother and sister, before it became to dangerous to be traveling as women and girls. So they shaved it all off. Yoko is motivated to get to Japan and finally meet her grandparents, and hopefully meet up with her Father, a Leader of Japan, and her brother Hideyo, who was helping with the armies ammunition. When Hideyo went away, he was suprised to be coming home to everything but a warm and friendly welcome. Instead, he saw the door to his house open, with the bolts Knocked off. He rushed inside only to find a note that his honorable sister had written for him. It basically said to meet with them in Soule, where they would there travel together to Japan and stay with their grandparents. When Hideyo doesn't come quickly enough, they start to worrie, Where could Hideyo be? Now the mother of the Kawashima family has not eaten for weeks, and when they arrive in Japan, she announces that she will be going alone to the grandparent’s house to check up on them and ask a few questions. But when she comes back she is ill for she has eaten barely anything since they escaped. Honorable mother dies straight in front of Yoko and when honorable sister gets back from school, she is devistated to find that her mother has died, but they only have little money to use for a funeral. The book is being shown through an eight and 16 year old boy who are trying to survive in this horrible time. I wouldn’t recommend this to a friend.
—Tykeonna
Yoko Watkins gives us a fictionalized account of her family's escape from North Korea at the end of World War II. However, she narrowly limits the historical setting and plot and avoids the moral issues surrounding her family's presence in Korea in the first place. Her family was in Korea as part of the Japanese imperial drive to conquer of Korea, China, the Pacific and even the western US. They were driven by a race based state religion that saw the Japanese Emperor as being a god and the Japanese as being a superior race destined to rule the world. We may never know the exact extent of Yoko's family's direct or indirect involvement in Japanese war atrocities but this context of history and morality must not be ignored.Living in North Korea, Yoko's father worked to enforce Japanese imperialist plans of carrying out cultural genocide (http://www.cgs.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/worksh...) through attempted eradication of Korean language, history, and forced adoption ofJapanese names, etc.. According to R.J. Rummel's “Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1990”, 5.4 million Koreans were conscripted into forced labor and shipped all over Russia, China, Japan. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, died under murderous working conditions and untold millions were never repatriated. Their descendants still live in remote areas of Russia, China and constitute the largest minority population in Japan living through what the UN Human Rights Rapporteur described as "deep and profound racism" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacif...). The Japanese also conscripted an estimated 100,00 to 200,000 teenage girls and women into forced sexual slavery for its military (http://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/06/new...).Manchuria, where Yoko's father worked, was the location of Unit 731 where innocent Korean and Chinese civilians were used to conduct medical experiments. Vivasections were performed on pregnant women and men without anesthesia. Biological weapons were tested on human subjects. These weapons were even used on the US (http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/21/wor..., http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/18/opi...).While Yoko herself may be a victim of history, a retelling of her story that sidesteps these historical and moral issues is a distortion of historical reality and morally irresponsible. We cannot be lulled into false naivety by being enamored by just the well-written narrative. This book is morally analogous to an escape story of a Nazi administrator's family living in Birkenow-Auschwitz trying to return to Germany while freed Jews and Poles exact cruel revenge on innocent Nazi families.If a hypothetical book told this story from a Nazi family's perspective in a sympathetic and compelling way, should it be taught to middle school children? Such a proposal would only be imaginable if there were grave, serious deliberations about all relevant social, historical, moral issues surrounding the book and a clear driving educational purpose. The suggestion should be rejected outright if the historical and moral context of Nazi atrocities was simply ignored, poorly known or even whitewashed.Similar considerations MUST be had with Yoko Watkins' book! Teaching such material to our children without proper awareness, let alone a deep and profound understanding, is a distortion of history and inexcusable moral irresponsibility. The fact that Yoko Watkins' book is being taught as a heroic escape narrative is born out of a lack of requisite understanding of East Asian history. Giving the author the honor of speaking to our children where this historical distortion and moral irresponsibility is perpetuated only furthers the travesty.There are no bamboo groves in the region of Korea where Yoko Watkins lived. There were no communist soldiers in North Korea. Repatriation of Japanese families occurred under military protection (http://web.archive.org/web/2007021403...). If there's anything to be salvaged from the tragedies of wars is for humanity to learn its past mistakes. This book can only portray Yoko and her family in a protagonist light by side stepping the history and morality behind her story. These are very things that should not be ignored from history.If the full truth and proper treatment of Yoko Watkins' real story cannot be properly conveyed to middle school children, teaching of her book should also be reconsidered. There are far richer and valuable books out there that can be taught in place of Yoko Watkins' book. There is no reason to tread on morally questionable grounds and create the possibility of hurting Korean-American families.
—Melonbarmonster
I'm currently reading this with my 6th grade students. They are enjoying it and are amazed that the central character, who is their age, is able to deal with the desperate situation in which she finds herself. Set in Korea and Japan at the very end of World War II, it gives Western students a glimpse of the war in Asia from the perspective of a young Japanese girl caught in the aftermath of the war. SHe and her family must make their way from Korea back to Japan where, once there, they find life not so easy as they had hoped once they were able to escape Korea.
—Karen
