So Far from the Bamboo Grove

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So Far from the Bamboo Grove

Author	Yoko Kawashima Watkins
Cover artist	Leo & Diane Dillon
Language	English
Series	none
Genre	War novel, Autobiographical novel
Publisher	HarperTeen
Publication date	May 24, 1994
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	192 pp
ISBN	ISBN 0-688-13115-8 Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character
Followed by	My Brother, My Sister, and I

So Far from the Bamboo Grove is a semi-autobiographical book written by Yoko Kawashima Watkins, a Japanese American writer. It was originally published by Beech Tree in April of 1986. A Japanese version of this book is not available while China has banned publication of it.

Overview

In the last days of World War II, an eleven-year old Japanese girl, Yoko Kawashima (along with her mother and sister) must leave their home in Nanam (now part of Chongjin), northern Korea, to travel south to Pusan to be re-patriated to Japan.

Plot

The story begins with Yoko Kawashima (and her mother and sister) living in Nanam, a city in northern Korea. When Korea becomes dangerous, Yoko and her family must leave to return to Japan. Hiding from both Japanese military and Koreans, her brother, Hideyo, also flees, but as he was employed in an ammunitions factory, he is separated from his family.

A difficult and frightening journey in experienced by the family as they make their way to Seoul and then Pusan to take a ferry to Japan.

When Yoko, her sister Ko, and her mother reach Fukuoka, Japan, they travel to Kyoto, as the mother had been educated there. She then leaves for Aomori to seek help from their grandparents. She returns to Yoko and her sister bringing dismal news that both of their grandparents are dead. The mother dies on the same day, leaving Yoko and Ko waiting for the eventual return of their brother, Hideyo.

A few months later, Yoko, Ko, and Hideyo are eventually reunited at Maizuru, and Hideyo tells his tale of how he escaped North Korea and made it to Japan.

Historical errors

The book says that Soviet troops first landed in Korea on July 29 1945 when the first Soviet advance into Korea did not take place until August 12 1945. The Soviet Union did not begin its attack against Japanese forces or Japan-held territories until August 9 1945 when it began the invasion of Manchuria.

Controversy

There has been controversy surrounding this book's reversal of the roles of Koreans and Japanese during Japanese annexation of Korea, as Japan colonized Korea from 1910 until its defeat on the V-J Day. The book has no mention of Japan's war crimes, such as forced labor and forced prostitution and portrays Koreans as the antagonists of the story.

The controversy began when children of Korean descent felt stigmatized after their classmates read and discussed Watkins's book in 2006. Korean American parents have sought to remove the book from the school curriculum. Similar efforts in other parts of the U.S. have been successful in removing the book from the curriculum and reading lists.

The controversy spread to South Korea when television program Neukkimpyo (느낌표 Exclamation Mark) has said that Koreans have been portrayed as "evil" and as "rapists" by the book. The program described Kawashima's book presents an "unhesitant, outrageous distortion" of Koreans.

South Korean newspapers The Chosun Ilbo and Yonhap News claimed that her father was involved in Unit 731 and that he was kept in Siberian prison for six years as a war criminal. They claimed to have uncovered further documentation of organized evacuation of thousands Japanese families evacuated from Manchuria and North Korea and eventually to Maizuru Bay, the same route taken by Yoko Watkins, under military and medical supervision.

The author said in an interview with JoongAng Daily that she had no intention to disregard the history of South Korea and apologized for any hard feelings felt by Korean readers. However, she stated that she only wrote about her experiences. She denied that her father was a high ranking officer of Unit 731 and said that her intention was to portray her experiences in a softer way for young readers.

JoongAng Daily quoted Daniel Barenblatt, who researches Japanese germ warfare program, against Watkins, and wrote that he "tenaciously bombarded 73-year-old Yoko Kawashima Watkins...with questions." Barenblatt said on his personal website that the newspaper had misquoted him. He only had the opportunity to ask two questions, but still opposes the book as it is "not based on fact" and "full of fabrication and misinterpreted history." He also states, the "historical reality" is opposite of the what was portrayed in the book.

In an editorial published in The Boston Globe, Harvard University professor Carter Eckert has called for putting the book into context while allowing the book into school curriculum, for example, with Richard Kim's Lost Names. Eckert described Watkin's story as "unfortunately incomplete, if not distorted, by the absence of this larger context." Without the context Eckerd points out that, "to teach 'So Far from the Bamboo Grove' without providing historicization might be compared to teaching a sympathetic novel about the escape of a German official's family from the Netherlands in 1945 without alluding to the nature of the Nazi occupation or the specter of Anne Frank."

References

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