The Bamboo Grove

Yoko Kawashima Watkins wrote her personal truth of the struggles she had experience in her autobiographical novel, So Far from the Bamboo Grove. Her novel gives the reader a first person account of the brutalities of war through the eyes of an innocent 12 year old Yoko Watkins. The clear and simple style of the novel draws the reader’s sympathy in favor of Yoko Watkins and her family as they escape the harsh Korean War. Yoko Watkins intention is writing the book was to share here survival story and her hope for peace, but her novel conceals the entirety of the true story of 1945. In 1953 Yoko Kawashima met and married an American pilot, Donald Watkins. In 1958 the two moved to the Massachusetts, United States, where they raised four children
and adopted two Taiwanese orphans. In 1976, after waiting thirty years, Yoko Kawashima Watkins interviewed her brother about his flight from northern Korea. Reliving the anguish of her childhood was no doubt difficult for Watkins, for it was not until ten years later that she finished the novel detailing their escape from Korea (So Far from… 2). So Far from the Bamboo Grove occurs from center around a young Yoko Watkins. Born Yoko Kawashima in Manchuria (So Far from... 3), the novel starts during the July of 1945, the Japanese Kawashima family was living comfortable in their home in the bamboo grove in Nanam, Korea. Her Father, a Japanese government official, is stationed in northern Korean which was under Japanese sovereignty. Japan had invaded Manchuria and had control over the Korean Peninsula and Southeast Asia. Yoko, her sister, Ko, and brother Hideyo, grew up in Nanam, Korea learning the Korean language and culture. As is Japanese tradition, her mother [sic] insisted on teaching Yoko Japanese traditions and heritage. “Even with the war upon us, my parents insisted that I continue with all my special lessons, not only calligraphy but The Way of Tea… poetry… and Japanese classic dance Lessons.” (Watkins 7). In 1945 it became apparent that Japan was losing the war and their control over Korea. Russian and the Korean army united against the Japanese, and the Korean Communist [rebel] Army took up arms against the Japanese, hunting and killing the Japanese as to exterminate the Japanese from [North] Korea. “My home was ransacked, the valuables were stolen. Now the communist slaughter good people!” (Watkins 60). Rumors spread of the Korean Communist Army’s merciless purge of Japanese. However, Yoko’s Father was away as he often was, and Hideyo had just started working at the Japanese ammunition factory. So the three women of the Kawashima family had to escape from the Korea on their own, leaving notes for the men to meet in Seoul or back in Japan. Then the book depicts Yoko, Ko, and their mother. Korea and Death. In 2006 a controversy in USA classrooms centered around the use of Yoko Kawashima Watkin’s So Far From the Bamboo Grove.
The Massachusetts Department of Education recommended Yoko Watkins and So Far from the Bamboo Grove as one of the sixty recommended books for 5th grade to 8th grade (Walach 17). The novel, with its elementary literacy style, creates a platform for introducing middle schooler to the events of the World Wars. The event that had global impact and marked the beginning of a new era. The proper explanation of the wars is the only truthful justification of why children born in this seemingly prosperous era will perpetually live under the threat of nuclear war. In the midst of the World Wars, the narrative of So far from the Bamboo Grove presents “courage and survival” (Lee 1). The literary department’s recommendation was accepted in numerous middle school around the nation. Yoko Kawashima is 12 years old by the end of the novel, and regularly school curriculums schedule 10-12 year olds to study the novel a unit on survival or refugees and migration. Watkins novel demonstrates how some of the most delicate and smallest people can go beyond mere survival through perseverance. However, the novel style directs reader sympathy around Yoko, implicating “perpetrators as victims” (Lee 1). However, even by current legislation, the Korean’s forceful expulsion of the Japanese is justified. The accounts detailing the crimes against humanity—and the Koreans—committed by
the Japanese during World War II are on par with the crimes committed by the Nazis. This is not to condemn the novel as slander, but as identify the partial truth of the novel and the historical truth. The full story can begin with the Korean Taewon-gun (“grand prince”), Heungseon Daewongun.
Under his sovereign rule was focus on strengthening the government and Korea as a nation. To accomplish this he adopted a strict isolation policy; “no treaties, no trade, no Catholics, no Japanese” (Cummings 235). The Japanese had started their up rise to imperialism, and wanted a biased trading deal with Korean. The Korean peninsula’s location is ideal for a trading port, but Heungseon Daewongun refused trading deal. Korea also an abundance of mineral and metal resources. Heungseon Daewongun’s policy strength the patriotism and culture of Korea. However, because of his isolation policy there was a limited market and less chance for Korea to experience an industrial revolution. Though because of this, Korea was underpowered compared to the Japanese
army. Japan entered the 19th century as member of the Allied powers with Great Britin, France, United States, and China. In 1931, Japan started to infect heavy influence of the area on Manchuria (northeast region of China above Korea). By the end on 1931, Japan had fully invaded Manchuria, and in 1937 march into China, launching a brutal attack. The Japanese imperialism was to be concrete and their conquest solidly secured, so the Japanese brutally attacked China and Korea. The imperialist Japan continued to make foreign policy and war decision solely based on their personal benefit. Invading Manchuria violated their treaty with the allied power. Russian also wanted control over China and Korea. In 1933 the Kawashima Family lived in Harbin, Manchuria, were Yoko was born. They later moved to Nanam, [north] Korea, while father [sic] commuted fifty miles to work in Manchuria which is why he was away during the events of the novel. When Yoko was eleven, in 1945, it became apparent that Japan was fighting a losing battle in World War II. Her family was warned to leave with just enough supplies and belongings to get them to the port of Pusan on the southern point of the Korean peninsula