When My Name Was Keoko

I read this book some time ago and I wanted to share some of it with whoever reads my posts. It's called "When My Name Was Keoko". It's about sister and her brother named Sun-hee and Tae-yul. They are a Korean family living during the time when Japan took over Korea and many other Asian nations. It starts with Japan banning the Korean language and having Japanese being the official language of Korea. The two live through life having the Japanese being dominant people over the Koreans. Their father is the vice-principal and a Japanese man is the Principal. Every leader in a business or occupation is Japanese. Even the Korean runner has to represent Japan in the Olympics even though he's born in Korea, raised in Korea and lives in Korea.

As life goes on for them, the Japanese changes every name from Korean to Japanese. Sun-hee changes her name to Keoko and Tae-yul changes his name to Nobuo. Still, the name seems so distant to them. It is a name, but never imagined as their names.

Later on, they find out that their dear Uncle is part of the underground resistance against the Japanese. Sun-hee's friend, Tomo, tries to tell her a message that metal is about to be collected from all of the homes. Sun-hee fails in getting the message and instead she tells her Uncle that they are going to find him and then he goes into hiding. Now that a resident is missing, an investigation is set out to find out what happened to him. Japanese search the family for some time and keep a watchful eye on them.

Afterward, several rules and changes happen to Korea. The schooling changes from studying to drills and bayonet practicing. All of the men are recruited to making an air strip outside the city. All of these materials are taken solely for the army of Japan. Food. Metal. Wood. everything is taken from them. Even the national tree of Korea is to be chopped and burned and replaced with Cherry Blossoms, national tree of Japan.

After some time, life becomes so harsh that the son, Tae-yul signs up for the army. He's tired of living a terrible life and food will be sent to this family so he wants to make life better for everyone. As he's in training, he signs up for something just because the Japanese don't think the Koreans are brave enough for the job. It turns out what he signed up for was to be a kamikaze pilot or a suicide pilot.

Back at home, Sun-hee sees many of the girls at her school be taken to Japan to work in factories. Despite that, life is overall better for her as food comes in and clothing gets shipped to her family...except for that she's doesn't have her brother or uncle with her.

During the day of Tae-yul's mission, they set off to attack the American ships. But as they set off, the leader of the mission calls it off due to the weather. Lucky break for them! But due to not accomplishing their mission, they get thrown into jail.

Back at home, Sun-hee and her parents recieve a letter saying that Tae-yul set off on his mission. They don't know about what happened yet, only that he died.

One day, while Tae-yul is in jail, he gets word that the war is over. He sets off to go home. While he's coming, back in Korea life changes back to the way it was before Japan came in. The Korean trees can be planted, Japanese leave to go back to Japan, and Korean can be spoken again. And american rations are given to everyone. Finally, they see Tae-yul come home.

As peace comes back to Korea, the story ends with Sun-hee and Tae-yul both finally learning how to write in Korean.

It's a great story if not explainable in the way I typed it. Better read in a book than on a computor.