Yoko Kawashima Watkins Popular Books

Yoko Kawashima Watkins Biography & Facts

So Far from the Bamboo Grove is an autobiography written by Yoko Kawashima Watkins, a Japanese American writer. It was originally published by Beech Tree in April 1986. Watkins's book takes place in the last days of 35 years of Korea's annexation by Japan. An eleven-year-old Japanese girl, Yoko Kawashima, whose father works for the Japanese government, must leave her home in Nanam, part of northern Korea, as her family escapes south to Seoul, then to Busan, to return to Japan. Plot summary The story begins with Yoko Kawashima (and her mother, brother and sister) living in Nanam. Yoko is 11 years old and living in North Korea during World War II while their father works as a Japanese government official in Manchuria, China. As the war draws towards a close, Yoko and her family realize the danger of their situation and attempts to escape back to Japan as communist troops close in on North Korea. Her brother, Hideyo, also tries to leave but he is separated from his family because he has to serve at an ammunition factory for six days a week. The women of the family board a train to Seoul using a letter from a family diplomat but their trip is cut short by a bomb 45 miles away from Seoul. Yoko is injured from the bombing and the women are forced to walk the rest of the way. After receiving medical treatment in Seoul, Yoko, her sister, and mother board a train to Busan, and then a ship to Japan. When Yoko, her sister Ko, and her mother reach Fukuoka, Japan, it is not the beautiful, comforting, welcoming place Yoko dreamed of. Once again, they find themselves living in a train station scrounging in the garbage for food to survive. Eventually, Yoko's mother travels to Kyoto to find her family. She then leaves for Aomori to seek help from their grandparents who she discovers are both dead. Their mother dies on the same day, leaving Yoko and Ko waiting for their brother Hideyo. Their mother's last words were to keep their wrapping cloth where she had hidden money for her children. Yoko begins to attend a new school where she enters and wins an essay contest with a cash prize. News of her winning the contest is reported in the newspaper. Hideyo and the Korean family who took bid farewell and Hideyo finally reaches Busan where he finds the message left to him by Yoko. After reaching Japan, he sees signs with his name and Yoko and Ko's address. While asking directions from locals, he is spotted by Yoko and they are reunited. Kawashima also wrote a sequel titled My Brother, My Sister, and I. Translations A Korean version of this book titled Yoko iyagi (요코이야기, "Yoko's tale") was published in 2005 and sold 4,000 copies of the first printing. However, it was banned soon after. A Japanese version of this book, Takebayashi haruka tōku: Nihonjin shōjo Yōko no sensō taikenki (竹林はるか遠く : 日本人少女ヨーコの戦争体験記, "Bamboo grove far distant: Japanese girl Yōko's war experience account") became available in June 2013. In June 2013, the book reached No. 1 on the Amazon Best Sellers in Books in Japan. Controversy Response in Boston The issue came to head after 2006, when 13 parents of Korean-American students in a Greater Boston community urged the book be removed from the English curriculum of Dover-Sherborn Middle School, resulting in the convening of a review committee that included the middle school librarian and two English teachers, which recommended removing the book from school curriculum in November 2006. A hearing in the Dover-Sherborn Regional School Committee was later held which took no action and instead referred the matter to a subcommittee for review. The book was later kept in the curriculum to be used in tandem with other books on Korean history for a more balanced experience. The parents' have complained that the book is "racist and sexually explicit" containing historical inaccuracies that whitewashed Japanese atrocities against Koreans during the Japanese Occupation. During the hearing of the School Committee on the proposed book ban one parent said he didn't think rape and other war atrocities were appropriate subject matter for young children. When talking of a scene in the book where a Japanese girl is being raped by a Korean man, the parent brought up worries that this would lead children to have a certain impression of Korean men, saying, "The first impression you imprint in a child's mind is typically very hard to erase." A Boston councilman also weighed in, stating that the Korean minority were being portrayed as the "bad guys", even though Japan was the one who had occupied Korea. Both the School Committee members and the parents said they had no objection to the book remaining in the school library. Although some staunch supporters of the book were teachers and parents who saw the issue as a matter of literary censorship rather than historical revisionism and distortion, the middle school headmaster who was on the book review committee said the panel struggled with its recommendation adding that there wasn't enough time in school to properly explore the issues raised by the book. Other supporters who coalesced around anti-censorship issue were Kathy Glick-Weil, president of the Massachusetts Library Association and director of the Newton Free Library, and Deborah Caldwell-Stone, deputy director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom. Response in California In 2009, Korean-American school parents submitted a complaint to the California Department of Education regarding inclusion of So Far From the Bamboo Grove in the school curriculum on grounds that the novel contained historical inaccuracies, including accounts of Japanese female victims of rape perpetrated by Koreans. The state of California gave school parents an opportunity to offer opinions and ultimately decided to remove the novel as a school curriculum option in the state. Around 50 K-12 Korean-American students who attended the Young Korean American Academy wrote letters to the state education offices and publishers asking for greater exposure of Korean history and culture, with McGraw-Hill sending back a response letter promising to implement students' requests. Response in Korea When this book was published in Korea as Yoko iyagi (요코 이야기, "Yoko's tale") in 2005, the sales were brisk partly due to a sales copy that said "why was this book banned in China and Japan?", but there was not much discernible social uproar about it. There had even been positive reviews written about it, accepting the book as delivering an anti-war and anti-colonial message. The situation completely changed in 2007, when it became a target of intense debate in Korea and in the United States. This development was triggered by the protests lodged by Korean-American students in the Greater Boston area in September 2006. Other schools Even prior to the Dover-Sherborn Middle School's decision to suspend the book, there have been other challenges tracked by the American Library Association, some of which ha.... Discover the Yoko Kawashima Watkins popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Yoko Kawashima Watkins books.