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Yes!
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SO FAR FROM THE BAMBOO GROVE So Far From the Bamboo Grove is a true story about Yoko Kawashima Watkins when she was an eleven-year-old girl, who had to flee Korea with her mother and older sister because the Koreans resented the Japanese. Yoko and her family were Japanese living in northern Korea. Yoko's father was a Japanese government official working in Manchuria, near the border of northern Korean. Japan had taken over Korea and ruled it as their own. The Korean people wanted their country back and hated the Japanese for occupying their country for many years. So the Japanese in Korea were in terrible danger. Now Japanese-occupied Korea was threatened by World Was II. The Russians, who had outposts close to the Korean border, might at any time join their allies, the United States and England, in the war against Japan. Yoko and her family's journey was very hard and life threatening. This all happened midnight on July 29, 1945. A family friend, Corporal Matsumura, came over and told Yoko's family to get out fast because the Russians were landing. He also told them that the Russians would be looking for them especially because of their father's work for Japanese interest in Manchuria. Corporal Matsumura had arranged with the stationmaster for them to get on a hospital train leaving for Seoul, Korea. I think it was admirable of Corporal Matsumura to go to the Kawashima's house and let them know that the Russians were landing and for him to arrange for them to get on the train. He probably saved their lives. When they arrived at the train station, they got onto a train car filled with sick and injured people. There was little room. They had been traveling for a couple of hours when the train stopped. The Korean Communist Army was inspecting the cars. The Communist soldiers were searching for the Kawashimas because of the father's work for the Japanese government. After that ordeal with the Communist Army, Yoko just wanted to get to Seoul as soon as possible. The train went on its way again. The train was moving then it came to a sudden jerk. The first two rail cars had been blown up. The nurse and medic that were in Yoko's car got off to move patients back to her car.
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