So Far From the Bamboo Grove by Yoko Kawashima Watkins

This text is a complementary text to The Year of Impossible Goodbyes. Well, maybe "complementary" is the wrong word. The two books present the opposing sides of the same conflict between Korea and Japan. This text comes from the point of view of a Japanese family living in Korea at the time of the conflict. The family had to flee the country, disguising themselves and hiding in order to survive. Showing different perspectives of one issue is something that is very enlightening for students. They are often presented with one very American view of history. In fact, sometimes it is even hard for kids to recognize the fact that there is a different side of the story. Teachers should really work to show kids that there are multiple perspectives and interpretations of every event.

In class, we talked a bit about how knowing both sides of a story really changes things. Knowing all of the angles makes things less black and white, making it harder to label one side as "right" and one side as "wrong." I had that experience in reading these two books. It was hard for me to look at the Koreans as being right after reading So Far From the Bamboo Grove, even though that was my initial reaction after hearing how much they suffered from the Japanese imperialism presented in the first book. I would not have believed that I would feel sympathy for the Japanese after reading the second book. But I really did as I was reading about the tragic life of this Japanese family.