Sookan In The Year Of Impossible Goodbyes

Over the course of Year of Impossible Goodbyes a lot happens to Sookan that makes her change. The first thing that happens to Sookan which is probably the most significant change is when the Japanese authorities feel that Sookan’s family is getting too rebellious. So the Japanese cut down the family's tree, which they care deeply about. Another way Sookan changes is she is allowed to rub her grandfather’s feet. When rubbing his feet, she finds how severely tortured he was by the Japanese. The last major change Sookan goes through is when her guide betrays Sookan and rats her family out to the communist authorities. By the end of the book, Sookan realizes that life is hard and that if you want something you have to take control and get what you want.

The Japanese feel that Sookan's family is getting a little to high spirited and the Japanese authorities feel they need to reassert their power over the family.

Their solution was chopping grandfather’s tree down, the one thing they know the family cherishes deeply. Shortly after the death of the tree her grandfather’s health begins to spiral, he is very weak and dies. This all happens on page (29 choi), "Aunt Tiger continued to cry bitterly as the police began hacking our tree to pieces. I wondered how Captain Narita knew that destroying the tree was the best way to punish Grandfather for writing Chinese and Hangul.” This changes Sookan because she realizes how she is never truly safe from the Japanese. She finds the anger to fight back and stand up for what she believes

in.

Sookan is allowed to rub her grandfather's feet with oil. She realizes that her grandfather's feet are very severely deformed. Sookan knew that he was missing a couple fingernails but she just thought it was in an accident. Now she knows how really cruel the Japanese were. "Sadness washed over me like a big ocean tide. My fingers trembled as I went over each toe with lemon, my head started to throb as all the horrible stories I had heard of Japanese cruelty went rushing through my mind. I held his toes in my hands. My eyes filled with tears." (43). Sookan knew that the Japanese were cruel but she never fully realized until now, how truly heartless they were. Anger and sadness sweeps over her as she sees how badly the Japanese had tortured her sweet old grandfather.
Sookan and her younger brother are made homeless because their guide was a double agent who had told the communists their plans for escaping. They have no food, no shelter, and worst of all no mother. They are all alone and clueless as to what to do. "In the still gray morning, her urgent words fell on me like a hammer, dashing my last hope. She said we must be up and on our way before the soldiers came by for their inspection. We must return to the train station and go back home. She couldn't bear to tell us last night that the guide we hired was a double agent" ( 136). This changed Sookan because for the most part Sookan was a fairly optimistic person. Now after this betrayal, there is no way to go back to that person she once was. In some ways this is good because it made her mature faster and come to the realization that not everything in this world will be given to her, life is hard and the sooner she realizes that the better off she will be.
All of this collectively made Sookan a much better person. Yes she matured much faster then most kids would have, but in some ways I think this was a good thing. She had to grow up much faster because she took on a lot more responsibilities. She realized that in life if you really want something, you have to go get. This applies to the real world because most kids in this generation are very spoiled and ignorant. many people who are Sookan’s age are don't realize that there are poor, powerless, and starved children in the world. Kids in the U.S take their possessions for granted, unlike Sookan who realized that things in life are precious and you must cherish them while you still have a chance.