[Desk column] Torn Between Fiction and Reality
By Park Yoon-bae
Internet Business Editor
A ``fictionalized autobiography’’ by a Japanese-American writer has sparked a controversy in Korea as well as the United Sates over the author’s alleged distortion of history concerning the Japanese colonial rule on the Korean Peninsular.
``So Far From the Bamboo Grove’’ by Yoko Kawashima Watkins, who is well-known for her anti-war activities, was first published in the U.S. in 1986.
And it has been taught in the English language arts curriculum of many junior high schools in New York, Boston and Los Angeles over the last 13 years.
In May 2005, the Korean translation of the autobiographical novel was published in Korea under the title of ``Yoko’s Story.’’ About 3,000 books have been sold so far in the country.
At the time of the publication, a couple of newspapers ran articles that gave a positive review on the book. Now readers wonder what has happened to the novel less than two years later.
A Seoul-based Korean language daily carried a review of the book, saying that it amounted to ``nonfiction that is more dramatic than a novel.’’
The article quoted the author as saying that readers ought to pay attention to the voice of an individual who had suffered under the name of nation or state.
The paper also said that the book could not be published in China due to strong anti-Japanese sentiment, while it failed to make its debut in Japan because it held Japan responsible for World War II and portrayed suffering from the war.
Two other newspapers also judged the novel highly, saying that the book vividly depicted the vortex of the final year of the war based on the author’s real experience.
In ``So Far From the Bamboo Grove,’’ Watkins tells the story of her family’s harrowing escape when the Japanese were forced out of Korea at the end of the war. She wrote the story from her 11-year-old perspective.
This month almost all local media outlets, including the three dailies, broadcasters and online news sites, have fired a barrage at the book.
They launched the belated media blizzard as Korean students and their parents in the U.S. strongly protested to school authorities for letting seventh-graders read the book in their classroom, which they claim was racist against Koreans and too graphic for young students.
The students and parents are angered by the novel as its heroine, Yoko, witnessed the murder and rape of Japanese women by anti-Japanese Koreans as she and her family fled southward from Nanam, a city now in North Korea, at the end of the war.
It is fortunate that an increasing number of schools in the U.S. are rejecting the book, accepting Korean-Americans’ complaints and protests.
It is inappropriate for schools to adopt Watkins’ novel as reading material because it can mislead young students into believing her story is true without giving them the context of wartime atrocities committed by the Japanese army.
No school in any part of the world would force students to read a book that described the flight of Germans escaping from France or other countries occupied by Germany during World War II.
No one should underestimate the efforts by the Korean-American students and their parents to remove the controversial book from the school curriculum.
However, we have to calm down and think about what novels are for and how much freedom authors are entitled to.
It is not desirable to have too much of an emotional reaction to Watkins’ book because it is fiction although it evolves around her own experience.
Some critics point out that the book is not anti-Korean, but anti-war, saying that people should look beyond narrow-minded nationalism and respect universal values.
They said that South Koreans have long been haunted by a specter of a black-and-white dichotomy and witch-hunting as the nation went through the Japanese occupation, the Korean War, the Cold War period, and iron-fisted rule by past military regimes.
Avid readers of ``Taebaek Sanmaek,’’ an epic novel series written by a famous South Korean writer Jo Jung-rae in the 1980s, still remember that anti-North Korean rightwing groups filed a complaint with the prosecutor’s office against the author for allegedly violating the National Security Law in 1994.
The groups claimed that Jo had violated the anti-communist law by sympathizing with pro-North Korean rebels fighting against South Korean troops in the Taebaek Mountains in the South during the 1950-53 Korean War.
The controversy over the novel that focused on the human aspects of the communist fighters ended in 2004 when the prosecutors’ office cleared Jo of the charges.
Now, we have to realize that a novel is not a history book, but fiction which reconstructs reality and facts through its author’s creative power and imagination.
One question still remains to be answered. What is the purpose of reading a novel? Most people would say that they read novels because they are exiting.
It is a pity that people are still torn between the esthetic and didactic values of literary works. Please look beyond the ``black and white, good and evil’’ dichotomy as far as fiction is concerned.
* * *
The Korea Times welcomes our readers' contributions to Letters to the Editor and Thoughts of The Times. The article should be preferably submitted by e-mail to opinion@koreatimes.co.kr and not exceed 900 words. _ ED.
byb@koretimes.co.kr
01-24-2007 18:53
http://search.hankooki.com/times/times_view.php?term=yoko++&path=hankooki3/times/lpage/opinion/200701/kt2007012418531654090.htm&media=kt
By Park Yoon-bae
Internet Business Editor
A ``fictionalized autobiography’’ by a Japanese-American writer has sparked a controversy in Korea as well as the United Sates over the author’s alleged distortion of history concerning the Japanese colonial rule on the Korean Peninsular.
``So Far From the Bamboo Grove’’ by Yoko Kawashima Watkins, who is well-known for her anti-war activities, was first published in the U.S. in 1986.
And it has been taught in the English language arts curriculum of many junior high schools in New York, Boston and Los Angeles over the last 13 years.
In May 2005, the Korean translation of the autobiographical novel was published in Korea under the title of ``Yoko’s Story.’’ About 3,000 books have been sold so far in the country.
At the time of the publication, a couple of newspapers ran articles that gave a positive review on the book. Now readers wonder what has happened to the novel less than two years later.
A Seoul-based Korean language daily carried a review of the book, saying that it amounted to ``nonfiction that is more dramatic than a novel.’’
The article quoted the author as saying that readers ought to pay attention to the voice of an individual who had suffered under the name of nation or state.
The paper also said that the book could not be published in China due to strong anti-Japanese sentiment, while it failed to make its debut in Japan because it held Japan responsible for World War II and portrayed suffering from the war.
Two other newspapers also judged the novel highly, saying that the book vividly depicted the vortex of the final year of the war based on the author’s real experience.
In ``So Far From the Bamboo Grove,’’ Watkins tells the story of her family’s harrowing escape when the Japanese were forced out of Korea at the end of the war. She wrote the story from her 11-year-old perspective.
This month almost all local media outlets, including the three dailies, broadcasters and online news sites, have fired a barrage at the book.
They launched the belated media blizzard as Korean students and their parents in the U.S. strongly protested to school authorities for letting seventh-graders read the book in their classroom, which they claim was racist against Koreans and too graphic for young students.
The students and parents are angered by the novel as its heroine, Yoko, witnessed the murder and rape of Japanese women by anti-Japanese Koreans as she and her family fled southward from Nanam, a city now in North Korea, at the end of the war.
It is fortunate that an increasing number of schools in the U.S. are rejecting the book, accepting Korean-Americans’ complaints and protests.
It is inappropriate for schools to adopt Watkins’ novel as reading material because it can mislead young students into believing her story is true without giving them the context of wartime atrocities committed by the Japanese army.
No school in any part of the world would force students to read a book that described the flight of Germans escaping from France or other countries occupied by Germany during World War II.
No one should underestimate the efforts by the Korean-American students and their parents to remove the controversial book from the school curriculum.
However, we have to calm down and think about what novels are for and how much freedom authors are entitled to.
It is not desirable to have too much of an emotional reaction to Watkins’ book because it is fiction although it evolves around her own experience.
Some critics point out that the book is not anti-Korean, but anti-war, saying that people should look beyond narrow-minded nationalism and respect universal values.
They said that South Koreans have long been haunted by a specter of a black-and-white dichotomy and witch-hunting as the nation went through the Japanese occupation, the Korean War, the Cold War period, and iron-fisted rule by past military regimes.
Avid readers of ``Taebaek Sanmaek,’’ an epic novel series written by a famous South Korean writer Jo Jung-rae in the 1980s, still remember that anti-North Korean rightwing groups filed a complaint with the prosecutor’s office against the author for allegedly violating the National Security Law in 1994.
The groups claimed that Jo had violated the anti-communist law by sympathizing with pro-North Korean rebels fighting against South Korean troops in the Taebaek Mountains in the South during the 1950-53 Korean War.
The controversy over the novel that focused on the human aspects of the communist fighters ended in 2004 when the prosecutors’ office cleared Jo of the charges.
Now, we have to realize that a novel is not a history book, but fiction which reconstructs reality and facts through its author’s creative power and imagination.
One question still remains to be answered. What is the purpose of reading a novel? Most people would say that they read novels because they are exiting.
It is a pity that people are still torn between the esthetic and didactic values of literary works. Please look beyond the ``black and white, good and evil’’ dichotomy as far as fiction is concerned.
* * *
The Korea Times welcomes our readers' contributions to Letters to the Editor and Thoughts of The Times. The article should be preferably submitted by e-mail to opinion@koreatimes.co.kr and not exceed 900 words. _ ED.
byb@koretimes.co.kr
01-24-2007 18:53
http://search.hankooki.com/times/times_view.php?term=yoko++&path=hankooki3/times/lpage/opinion/200701/kt2007012418531654090.htm&media=kt