요코 가와시마 왓킨슨의 요코이야기(So far from the bamboo grove) 서평에 쓸 내용들

미국의 '배론즈앤 노블즈' 라든가 '아마존닷컴' 같은 책방 사이트나 언론사의 [요코 가와시마 왓킨슨의 요코이야기(So far from the bamboo grove)]의 서평을 독자의 입장에서 쓸 기회가 있다면 참고할만 하겠다. 한국의 인터넷 누리꾼들의 해외진출을 적극 권하는 바이다.

 

1. Distorting history- war criminals' never ending dream
Japanese killed raped, tortured, and exploited millions of Koreans (as well as other Asians) during its imperial period. They buried people alive, burned alive, drafted abroad and forced to work until they died of hunger and disease. If this is not enough, they experimented on live human bodies, and also kidnapped young girls and put them in military sex salve camps. The girls forced to be used as sex toys until they killed themselves or got mad. And this book is describing Japanese as victims and Korean as victimizers. It’s like a daughter of Nazi soldier blames Jewish people as victimizers of Germens. Besides many part of the story cannot even be true historically. Japanese do not educated its past grotesque bloody thirty history its new generations. This book is just one of the results of Japanese systematic, intentional lie on their past that they always want to bury deep.

 

2. Falsification of History
This book is awful in historical context, Yoko paints life on the Korean penninsula poorly and wrongly. The life of the Korean people after Japanese annexation was horrible, atrocious. When the annexation began, the Japanese imperialist power murdered a Korean Queen MyungSeung and forcibly removed Korean Princes from their homelands. None of the horrible things that happended during the Japanese annexation is mentioned, and this book portrays the Koreans as savages, which is completely untrue, if anything, the Japanes are savages in the context that many of the cultural potteries were taken from the Korean penninsula. Perhaps the author should have researched a bit more about the history of the Korean penninsula before she decided to pen this book. Do not let anyone read this book, its books like these that distort history and defaces the values that were learned from history.

 

3. Better if not recommended for children
It is even more important to point out how faith and wrong information continues to divert the real history issues when the author solely relied on her own experience. The danger of this book is being felt in innumerable ways, and the danger goes on growing in terms of brainwashing of children. Her writing is good enough for us to blind emotionally, despite the fact that Japanese actually invaded Korea and committed cruel crimes, such as killing and sending Korean girls into the World War II battle zone as sex slaves for Japanese troops. At first I thought it is both odd and a mistake to refer her home in Korea as 'bamboo groove', which Bamboo can not grow in the northern part in Korea, the setting of this book. However, I can not blame her because I figured out it is not her fault. Mirroring the fact that even current Japanese students do not learn at school what their ancestors had done for other Asian countries, I assumed that she had not received the right information what had happened really in Korea before 1945. What the author was able to do was just relying on her memory, which could be adulterated.

 

4. Interesting... But...
This book is interesting, and it might be true story. But this book makes people believe that Korean people are just horrible without saying what Japanese did to Korean for 35 years. If someone read this book and say Koreans are bad, I will tell the person, 'Study Korean & Japanese history about what Japanese did to Korean and you will say Japanese are just monsters.'

 

5. This book makes me hurt in my heart!
Before you read this book you should know the background history of this story. You may not know there were about 200,000 womens (mostly Koreans) forced to become sexual slaves for Japanese Millitary during the war. That was an indelible blot in human history. This book hides the bloody massacre of innocent people by the Japanese and beautifies them implicitly. You should know who was the oppressor and who was the weak.

 

6. This book is far from the truth
I cannot beleive this book is recommended for the students. This is very very dangerous reading material that is far from the truth. If you have a little bit of common sense, you will realize history is distorted by the author. Shame on you, Yoko. This book is not even worth a one star. If you are a teacher and recommending this book to the students, please check your common sense as a teacher.

 

7. frustrating and sad
I am very frustrated and sad that people(esp students)who read this book get the wrong information about the history between korea and japan.japan did the most cruel things that I even can't describe to korean,chinese and other asians. In this book, the writer made it totally opposite way.(how deceitful and cunning)

 

8. No..
This book is totally modified, just for Japan's benefit. Most of the contents in this book were not true, and it portrays that Korea were the agressors when instead, they were the victims. Yoko wrote a story to cover up and make people believe that the Japanese were the victims of the Koreans. However, in reality, the story in this book is not as bad compared to what the Japanese did to Korea. I am worried for the people who read this book without knowing what really happened in the Korean-Japanese history. This book covers the truth of who the real victims were. Kids should not be reading this book for a school assignment because it will lead them to believe false stories about Korea. So before making any conclusions about Korea, find out the true history instead of believing this false one.

 

9. Yoko's father was a high-level official in Unit 731

I'm sure that a well-written, emotional, sympathetic book can be written about Hitler's sister too. Would you support such a book also? Yoko's father was a high-level official in Manchuria where Camp Ishii(Unit 731) was located. This is where bio weapons were tested on koreans and chinese as well as vivasection performed on civilians and pregnant women. As a high offical, Yoko's father also oversaw forced conscription of Korean workers to perform slave labor in death mining camps in Japan. He also probably oversaw the collection of rice and other harvest in the fall from the Koreans farmers to ship to Japan. He also had to oversee dealing with beheading North Korean Christians who refused to bow to the emperor of the master race. What a sad, sad tragedy this has all become.

 

10. A Matter of Context form the Boston Globe
For readers who are interested in this book, I recommend to read this article to get the balanced idea on the distorted historical truth that this book made and to realize why this book is not proper for teaching at school.

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'A matter of Context' By Carter Eckert | December 16, 2006

The Boston Globe THE CONTROVERSY in the Dover-Sherborn Regional School Committee concerning the inclusion of Yoko Kawashima Watkins's book 'So Far from the Bamboo Grove' in the sixth-grade curriculum underscores the importance of history in the teaching of literature, especially when the texts deal with a specific historical time and place. Watkins's book, based on the author's life, focuses on the harrowing experiences of an 11-year-old Japanese girl and her family at the end of World War II in the northern part of Japanese-occupied colonial Korea. It is a well-written, gripping tale of terror and survival, and its first-person narration from the viewpoint of the girl, Yoko, makes it all the more powerful for sixth-grade readers. Teaching should encourage students to think 'outside the box' of American ethnocentricity and highlight human commonalities across cultural and historical divides. Watkins's book goes a long way toward accomplishing these goals. Through the magic of her prose and identification with her heroine, students are transported to a distant and different time and place and can experience Yoko's ordeal and triumph as their own. But context and balance are important. While Yoko's story is compelling as a narrative of survival, it achieves its powerful effect in part by eliding the historical context in which Yoko and her family had been living Korea. That context, simply put, was a 40-year record of harsh colonial rule in Korea, which reached its apogee during the war years of 1937-45, when Yoko was growing up. While some Koreans fared better than others, many were conscripted for forced labor and sexual slavery to serve the Japanese imperial war machine, while the colonial authorities simultaneously promoted a program of intensive, coercive cultural assimilation that sought to erase a separate Korean identity on the peninsula. Watkins was a small girl as these events were unfolding and can hardly be blamed for them, let alone held responsible for the occupation itself. But the story she tells is unfortunately incomplete, if not distorted, by the absence of this larger context. For example, she notes in passing that 'the Koreans were part of the Japanese empire but they hated the Japanese and were not happy about the war.' Since no further context is provided, young readers knowing little of the larger history of Japanese colonialism or the wartime atrocities might be tempted to think of the Korean population as ungrateful or uncooperative toward the Japanese empire of which they were a part. The author's depictions of Koreans in the 'Anti-Japanese Communist Army' are similarly problematic. First, there is some question as to whom she is referring here. There was no organized 'Anti-Japanese Communist Army' of Korean soldiers, except for Kim Il Sung (later the leader of North Korea) and his guerrilla partisans in Manchuria, but they did not arrive in Korea until early September 1945, long after the events described in the book. It is possible, of course, that she is referring to some scattered local Korean communist groups, who sought a violent redress of colonial grievances in the Nanam area where the story takes place. Such violence cannot be condoned. But simply to portray Korean communists in 1945 as endemically evil is not only empirically incorrect it removes Korean communism from the larger historical context that explains its anti-Japanese stance and its appeal to many Koreans. Indeed, throughout Korea in 1945 communists were widely regarded as patriotic nationalists who had risked their lives against a brutal colonial regime. Dover-Sherborn teachers should be applauded for trying to expand the minds of their students beyond the familiar, and to include works about Asia in their curriculum. But Watkins's book may not serve that purpose well, especially if it is taught simply as a heroic personal narrative of survival, without adequate provision of historical context. This is not an argument for censorship or banning books. There is no reason why Watkins's book cannot be used in the schools. Introduced carefully and wisely, in conjunction, for example, with Richard Kim's classic 'Lost Names,' an autobiographical novel about a young Korean boy living at the end of Japanese colonial rule in the 1940s, it can help students understand how perspectives vary according to personal and historical circumstances. But 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. Carter Eckert is a professor of Korean history at Harvard University.

 

11. Context...context...context...
First, So Far from the Bamboo Grove is a well-written story of survival, and Ms. Watkins has done an excellent job to bring her alleged experience to life. Her lack of historical contexts, if not complete absence of such, however is at the very least grossly irresponsible. Unsuspecting young minds will question the 'ungratefulness' of the Korean people, as they are portrayed as 'part of the Japanese empire.' They will come home asking, 'Why Koreans are so bad to Yoko?' Ms. Watkins have had decades to put her experience into perspective in larger context of Koreans-Japanese relationship during WWII, and yet she chose to ignore them. Yoko as an 11-year old girl has every right to see her experience 'as is'. Ms. Watkins as an adult, I'm afraid, does not have the same luxury. Second, questions have risen on the historical accuracies of the book. one may question how accurate a sixth-grader book should be, but much of the power of Ms. Watkins' book derives from it. Some are minors such as, 'Does bamboo really grow in cold climate of North Korea? to majors such as, 'Which Anti-Japanese Communist Party is she referring to?' Kim, Il-Sung didn't enter Northen part of Korea until late 1945, and the Party actually was not established until 1948. Third, Some historical contexts taken from other reviewer: 1. Japan forcibly colonialized Korea in 1910 until her independence in 1945. 2. During the brutal colonialization, Koreans are prohibited to use the Korean language, and are forced to adopt Japanese name. False imprisonments and tortures of Korean citizens are commonplace. 3. Young men (numbering in the hundreds of thousands) are forcibly drafted to support Japan's war efforts on the frontline. 4. Girls (as young as 12 years of age and numbering close to 200,000) are uprooted from their home and family to work as 'sex slaves' to Japanese soldiers. They are often forced to served as many as 30 'guests' a day. That means 6 millions 'organized' rapes against Korean women occured everyday since 1943.(The year the practice started) 5. Holocaust denials are punishable offence in most European countries, and yet popular ultra-nationalist Japanese politicians often deny any wrongdoings of Japanese military during WW2 (even those convicted in war crimes tribunal).

 

12. I am currently a student who has read this book.

I am currently a student who has read this book. I was very touched by it-- until I found the behind story. Concerned about the historical details, I did some research on this topic. It seems to me now that this is a book which leans to one side. It's like, a book about a high-ranking Nazi family who escapes from Germany and gets abducted by the Jewish. Not only is this a false image, it is also a horrible distortion of truth. First of all, bamboos don't grow on where the author starts her story. It's much too cold for that. Second, her father was a mamber of the 731 unit who used Koreans, Americans, and Chinese as lab mice. Third, this book seeks to color the Japanese past as white, clear, innocent. The most horrifying thing to me was that the author used her skill with words to disfigure her nation's history (unlike the Germans) and brainwash children. Perhaps I'm going a little too far, but I was thoroughly disgusted by this book. It should be banned.

 

13. Heard of the Diary of Anne Frank?

Heard of the Diary of Anne Frank? Well imagine that book, but Anne is a Nazi girl who is hiding from the angry Jews. This book is so disturbing of its content that I am not sure why it was even allowed to be published in America. And the fact that the book claims to be a 'true account' is an insult to the victims of WW2. Here are just some historical inconsistencies. 1. The Korean Communists were not established until 1948, 3 years after the liberation of Korea. 2. American warplanes barely touched the Korean peninsula throughout the war. 3. Russian forces had begun to overrun Japanese defences in Manchuria and the northern tip of Korea until Japanese surrendered. The American soldiers didnt even arrive in the southern part of Korea until Japan's surrender. 4. Japanese forces remained in Korea until Russian/American forces relieved them. 5. The korean atrocities described in the book were rare, while japanese atrocities were rampant. The book completely glosses over this fact. 6. Here are some historical statistics. -2 million korean men conscripted into forced labor and military service -300,000+ korean girls conscripted into forced prostitution and sexual slavery I am not criticizing the writing style or character development of the book. My main contention is the historical fallacies and disturbing content in which the book potrays a supposedly'true account'

 

14. ...Hiroshima and Nagasaki???

Mrs. Watkins' book speaks of the Japanese being the victims of the American bombs in Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She does portray the Japanese as the victims of WWII. She may have thought that at the age of 11. Currently, she is on the website for Stonewalk.org. The mission statement of the Stonewalk.org group requests that the American government apologize for US war crimes against Japan. Mrs. Watkins visits with our children yearly in many of the schools in Massachusetts. Without a balance of Asian history the children accept her point of view as the correct one. I agree that war is a bad experience for everyone. This is important to teach our children. It is also important to teach our children history. America did not enter WWII until we were attacked. We were attacked by the Japanese on Dec 7th. The attack on Pearl Harbor was the Sept 11th of the 1940s. If you would like more information on the Japanese activities during WWII in Manchuria where her father was employed, go to the National Archives. There is an officer Matsumura whose job was to evacuate all Unit 731 families in August 1945. Is this the same Masumura that warns her family and provides them with a railroad pass to get out of Nanam in August 1945? The South Manchurian Railway owned the Medical College of Manchuria. All the physicians from this school were sent to Unit 731 to perform medical experiments on humans. Google Unit 731 and you will find a biochemical and human experimentation camp where Chinese, Korean and US POWS were murdered. There are no survivors of Unit 731. These stories are told by former Japanese soldiers. Do not accept any Book Ban...but do balance this book with the historical facts. Do ask the critical questions...What is a wealthy Japanese girl doing in Korea in 1945? Why are the Russians and the Koreans looking for the Kawashima family...2 daughters and a son? What is her father's role in Manchuria? Why does he go to Siberia and return at the same time as the Unit 731 soldiers? Why do we want to teach the children that the Japanese were not the aggressors of WWII? There are better survival books available for our children. I hope our teachers will agree to teach this book with a balanced point of view and at an age where the children are mature enough to be critical thinkers. I am thankful that Mrs. Watkins' and I both have the freedom of speech. I will not forget the American soldiers that protect us so that we still have these freedoms today.