So Far From The Bamboo Grove

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Recommended: Effects of WW 2 on Japan

So Far from the Bamboo Grove written by Yoko Kawashima Watkins, is a story based on the author’s childhood as an eleven year old girl trying to survive her escape to Kyoto, Japan during World War II. Yoko, the little girl, tells the story from her point of view. She describes everything that she, her mother and sixteen year old sister, Ko, battled through as she saw it from the eyes of an adolescent. Yoko was only able to mention what little she knew about her brother, Hideyo. At the time, they were living in the Japanese territory of northern Korea named Nanam, near the border of Manchuria. The Koreans were on a mission to take back their land and were doing anything in their power to take from the people who occupied that Japanese territory. …show more content…

Matsumura, came to the Kawashima house to warn them that they needed to leave immediately because their family was being sought after by the Korean military. However, only the three women were home and were forced to leave honorable brother behind because he was away at the factory he worked at for the military. The three women then sneaked off into the night and boarded a train filled with the sick and injured. They left a note for honorable brother so he would know that they would be heading towards Seoul, Korea and he could meet them there. That was the beginning of the long road of hunger, running from their death and extreme terror they all were going to experience. Prior to fleeing though, Yoko’s mom was very strict about her studies and her sister’s studies. Once the women were able to find a ship to take them to Japan, the mother immediately enrolled the girls in school even though they were very poor and had only the train station to live in. The mother had family in Japan and went to search for them in hopes they could take them in. She was unsuccessful in finding refuge from the family because they had been killed from the American bombings in the

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