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
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
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