Dragonfly Eyes by Cao Wenxuan

Dragonfly Eyes is a story about a Chinese-French family and their life in Shanghai during the middle of the 20th century. At the heart of the story is the intergenerational relationship between the family's French grandmother Nainai and her granddaughter Ah Mei.

Nainai's husband and Ah Mei's grandfather was Du Meixi, who was the son of a wealthy Chinese silk merchant. The family's silk business was extensive extending into Europe. Du Meixi's father travelled throughout Europe establishing the European part of their sick business in Lyons, where he eventually settled. 

At twenty-five, Du Meixi, recently widowed, refused to join his father in Lyons to take charge of the silk business. Instead, he became a sailor, signing on to a French steamer that sailed between Shanghai and Marseilles. Meanwhile Du Meixi's family in Shanghai continued to care for his son and daughter.

In 1925, during a stopover in Marseilles, Du Meixi met a lovely Frenchwoman named Oceane in a café. Seventeen days after meeting, they travelled to Lyons to meet his father.  When Du Meixi's father first met Oceane, he was astonished at the power she held over his son. He felt Oceane was his son's port. That night Du Meixi's father gave him two exquisite oval glass balls, called dragonfly eyes. He told Du Meixi to have them set in a necklace to give to her on their wedding day. Du Meixi handed in his notice to the steamer company and he and Oceane were married. This allowed Du Meixi's father to return to Shanghai to run the silk business while his son managed the European end from Lyons.

Du Meixi was called Yeye and he called Oceane, Nainai. Yeye and Nainai had four children: a son born in 1927, a second son in 1929, Ah Mei's father in 1931, and a girl in 1933. The children spoke French and Shanghainese. The family and the silk business prospered. Yeye and Nainai took their children often to visit family in Shanghai.

In 1937, the Japanese occupied Shanghai. As the world slipped closer to war, the Du family silk business in Europe collapsed. In China, the family silk business was also struggling to survive and Yeye's father was struggling physically and financially. Yeye decided he needed to return home, but at the insistence of Nainai, the entire family packed up and travelled to Shanghai. This decision would seal the family's fate in the coming years, as the Communists came to power in China and life changed in ways they could never have predicted.

Discussion

Dragonfly Eyes is a novel about the fictional Du family set first in France and then in China and covers the period from the 1920's to the 1960's. The novel focuses primarily on "the family life of Du Meixi, a Chinese man from Shanghai, and Oceane, a Frenchwoman from Marseilles, their four children and ten grandchildren, against the background of war and political upheaval, particularly in China." The novel immediately engages readers with the delightful and romanticized description of Du Meixi (Yeye) and Oceane (Nainai) meeting and subsequent marriage. It then moves swiftly from their tranquil and prosperous life in France before World War II to their move to Shanghai, China and their difficult life under communism.

Wenxuan's narrative is a gentle telling of a fictional family's experiences during the first decades of the Communist revolution in China but it lacks the rich historical context needed to give it depth and   perspective. In the very brief Historical Note at the back, author Cao Wenxuan writes that "...the historical events are mentioned only lightly", meaning that there is only indirect mention of what is actually happening within Chinese society and therefore very little context to what the Du family is experiencing. Whenever events are mentioned, the description is brief with little explanation offered. Most authors of historical fiction, even for children's novels, strive to identify and inform readers about the political and social events occurring so readers can better relate to what is happening to the characters.

For Cao Wenxuan's Dragonfly Eyes, this connection is not easily made because young readers are not given the background information to do so. This lack of context is especially egregious because most Western readers have little knowledge of events like the Great Chinese Famine, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution or the Gang of Four. It's as if the author doesn't want to connect the devastating impact on the Du family to the failed policies of China's Communist government. These policies were used to entrench communism in China, quell any remaining resistance, and destroy China's rich cultural history and identity. The policies of Mao Zedong directly resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese citizens. 

In 1949, after the Communist takeover of China, the land of wealthy farmers and citizens was given to poorer farmers. To control the rural population who worked smaller farms and were continuing to practice their traditions, Mao began forcing them into collectives between 1949 and 1958. These collectives gradually increased in size, becoming very large. Private ownership was abolished in 1958 and everyone was forced into state-operated businesses. All religious institutions and ceremonies were banned, and replaced with political and propaganda meetings. In 1956, the hukou was re-introduced. This internal passport system restricted people from living in certain areas.

The Great Leap Forward was another policy developed by Mao Zedong to industrialize the country. This ran from 1958 to 1962 and saw the introduction of mandatory agricultural collectivization. The result was disastrous and led to the Great Chinese Famine which lasted from 1959 to 1961. The policies of the Great Leap Forward that were most responsible for the famine included the use of poor agricultural practices such as deep plowing and close planting, the poor distribution of food and the Four Pests Program. Food was appropriated by the state and stored to achieve quotas and for stockpiling. The result was not enough food left for the citizens and they starved. The Four Pests program saw the extermination of the Eurasian tree sparrow leading to an ecological imbalance that allowed insects such as locusts to thrive and devour the crops. It is estimated than between fifteen and fifty-five million people died in the famine, which was considered the worst man-made disaster.

The Cultural Revolution, launched in 1966 by Mao Zedong, had the intended goal of purging the country of any remaining capitalistic practices and of traditional Chinese culture. Mao believed that some were attempting to reinstate capitalism in the country, so he asked young people - the first crop of new communists - to rebel. They responded by forming the Red Guards, paramilitary groups made up of high school and university students. They were intent upon ridding the country of what were labelled the Four Olds": old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits. To accomplish this, many cultural sites and historical artifacts were destroyed. The remnants of the Old Summer Palace in Beijing, built during the Qing Dynasty and partially destroyed during the Second Opium war were badly vandalized. The Confucian Temple in Qufu, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was ransacked, with many of its historical artifacts lost or destroyed. The destruction of religious sites and cultural art and antiquities resulted in a loss of religious and cultural identity for many Chinese. Schools and universities were closed and National College Entrance Examinations were cancelled. Seventeen million young people were sent to rural villages to learn from farmers.  Many ended up permanently exiled, losing their chance to continue their education. Intellectuals, scientists and scholars were killed or forced to commit suicide. The Cultural Revolution resulted in mass chaos and violence with between half a million to over two million deaths. 

Much of what happens in China does affect the Du family. Du Meixi gives up his family's silk business to the government because he is made to do so. Instead of running his business, he becomes an employee. As the family becomes impoverished, they begin selling off their possessions. The reasons are only vaguely explained and in some cases are somewhat misleading. For example in the chapter, The Piano, Wenxuan writes about the famine in China: "Shanghai had been so vibrant, but there was famine across the entire region now. The situation was serious.

In the sky above China, the sun, like a huge ball of fire, blazed furiously all day: trees were dying, crops were wilting, rivers were running dry...The sparrows that used to be everywhere disappeared, perhaps starved to death, or left with no choice but to fly off to the villages to look for food:..."  

Based on this description, the young reader might believe that the famine China was experiencing was the result of drought and that the sparrows simply couldn't find food. Although there were floods and a drought, these were considered insignificant in relation to previous droughts and floods.  As for the sparrows, they were eradicated, allowing insect pests to proliferate, destroying what crops remained.  As a result, the context of the story that is described in Dragonfly Eyes, where one of Ah Mei's classmates, Qui Qui faints due to lack of food, is lost. She is starving, but not because of drought. Ah Mei's family and her classmates, including Qui Qui  are suffering not from some random event, but from a man-made catastrophe.

This is just one of many events that occur throughout the story where the social situation is described but there is no context given, leaving the younger reader to wonder. The rise of the paramilitary Red Guards is another example. Wenxuan merely describes how suddenly young people have become loud, chanting and yelling, fighting one another in the streets. 

If the author felt that providing more historical information within the novel for his readers would add unnecessary detail, a more extensive Historical Note or Author's Note would have helped young readers understand the events described in the story. Although Wenxuan mentions the Cultural Revolution in his Historical Note, it is only to state that this changed how Oceane was perceived.  It is therefore recommended that readers who wish to understand some of the historical background to the events portrayed in Dragonfly Eyes, do some research on China's history. Also helpful would have been a map of China showing the relative placement of Beijing, Shanghai, and Yibin, and a map showing the relative placement of France and China.

 Although the novel concludes in 1968, when Ah Mei is fifteen-years-old,  we know that draconian communist policies did not end with the Cultural Revolution but grew even worse with the implementation of the One Child Policy in 1980, that saw an estimated three hundred forty million babies murdered or aborted. The policy has created a gender imbalance in China's population as well as fewer younger workers to support an aging population.  Ah Mei would have lived through this vicious policy had Wenxuan continued his saga.

Although the historical detail is lacking, Wenxuan does show the heart-breaking impact these social and cultural changes have on members of the Du family. Ah Mei's cousin, Ah Lang looks like his French grandmother, with his brown hair and Western nose. Once a popular student who was considered handsome by many of his classmates, Ah Lang is tormented by his fellow students as the Red Guards create chaos in Chinese society. He becomes so ostracized that he takes to wearing a mask to hide his face and is eventually driven from school, To fit in, he voluntarily takes part in the "Down to the Countryside Movement" in which students were exiled to remote rural areas to learn from farmers. His letters seem to suggest that he is happy but Nainai believes this is not really the case.  

Especially heartbreaking are the attacks on Nainai and Yeye at the Blue House. As suspicion grows towards anyone the different or seen as representing the old bourgeois class, Nainai is singled out as a spy by the Red Guards. They attack the Blue House, vandalizing it and imprisoning both Nainai and Yeye. Nainai is sent to a brick yard to carry bricks and Yeye to a pig farm. Although Wenxuan isn't specific about their ages, except to say they are getting older, it is likely Nainai is at least sixty-years-old and Yeye much older than that. Their harassment by the Red Guards continues with another break-in that leads to act of heartbreaking destruction, robbery and an injury that ultimately costs Yeye his life. Wenxuan's description of the attack on Nainai's beloved apricot tree exposes the senseless violence the Red Guards used to intimidate those whom they felt were subverting the communist ideals they believed in. Even after Nainai returns to Shanghai after fleeing to the countryside for her own safety she is once again taken, this time to be paraded through the streets. Fortunately, that does not happen.

Wenxuan captures the love and devotion that exists between members of the Du family, especially towards their grandparents, Nainai and Yeye. When any difficulty befalls them, their children rush to help in any way they can. Because they treated everyone with fairness and respect, whether it was friends or employees, Nainai and Yeye are often repaid for their kindness when they are in dire need.

Dragonfly Eyes is a well-written but lengthy novel for readers aged nine and up. Although it lacks historical context, Cao Wenxuan's writing is lyrical and emotive, capturing both the intense emotions of this tragic period in China's history and the beauty of the countryside. The description of the area that Mrs. Song lives in, an island in the middle of a river with tall reeds is breathtaking."When the wind blew, the reeds rushed forward, a dark tide of green waves. At their feet, the water rushed too, a white tide of glistening crystals. In the distance there were boats moving on the water, their lamps twinkling in the dark, flickering as they passed behind the reeds..."

Overall, Dragonfly Eyes is a novel to be read mainly because it's one of the few pieces of historical fiction for younger readers that covers the early Communist regime in China and the devastating impact of Communist policies on it's people. Teachers and parents are recommended to supply historical information that will help in understanding what the fictional Du family experienced.

Book Details:

Dragonfly Eyes by Cao Wenxuan
Somerville, Massachusetts: Candlewick Press 2021
375 pp.

Mangilaluk by Bernard Andreason

In the graphic memoir, Mangilaluk, Bernard Andreason describes his life-long struggle to find a place to belong and to understand his own identity.

At birth, Bernard was taken away from his mother at birth and spent the first two years in several homes. He was given to the Andreasons who provided Bernard with the basics of life. Initially he felt loved at times but tragedy struck with the death of his foster mother. The Andreason family life soon became less than ideal with alcohol abuse. 

When he was eight years old, Bernard was sent away to a residential school in Inuvik. At Stringer Hall Residential School, Bernard found life harsh, often experiencing fear and shame. One Christmas, Bernard was forced to stay at the residential school over the holidays. Bernard and his friends would often get smokes. One time, his friend Dennis took smokes from a supervisor. She knew they had been stolen and was angry. The next day the three boys left the school and spent the day in the bush. They didn't want to return to the school to face their punishment so they decided to walk home. When they came to a raging creek, Bernard felt they had to go back but Dennis decided to continue on.

When the weather turned rainy, Bernard and Jack decided to turn around and find Dennis. Unable to find him they once again headed to Inuvik. But Jack became too ill to go on so Bernard made him as comfortable as possible and decided to journey to Tuk. He continued walking along the powerline and was eventually rescued. 

Once safe, Bernard felt that he was loved and cared for, but devastated that his friends were gone. As he could not return to the residential school, he continued his schooling in town. At school he continued to learn but at home he experienced "...a roller coaster of verbal and physical abuse, neglect, and an introduction to alcohol."

As a teenager, Bernard struggled, sometimes attending school, often drinking. In high school, Bernard found some teachers believed in him and tried to help. Eventually he came to believe that to find who he was, he needed to leave home. After drifting for several years, Bernard enrolled in the Indigenous Journalism program at Western University in London, Ontario. He soon found friends in the Six Nations Reserve community who made him feel accepted. He wrote, was published learned a lot about himself. 

It was in the early 1990's that Bernard was diagnosed as HIV positive. He felt isolated, an outcast and began to withdraw. He left London and moved to Vancouver, at first living rough. It was Dr. Catherine Jones who helped Bernard get back on track, prescribing a drug cocktail to manage his symptoms. A social worker helped him obtain a disability income. As his health recovered, Bernard became a student at the Native Education Centre in Vancouver, obtaining his Adult Upgrading. He felt capable of achieving anything.

He moved to Prince George to study at UNBC but found that while the campus was beautiful, the people were not. He felt out of place, perceived as just another unemployed Indigenous man. But when his biological father passed away in the middle of the semester, Bernard decided to head back to his family in Tuk. This would set in motion the old, destructive patterns that destroyed most of what he had built upon in Vancouver and Prince George. After more than a decade of living rough in Prince George he returned to Vancouver where he began to recover physically, mentally and spiritually. It was the efforts of a young teacher from Inuvik who would set in motion Bernard's healing from the events of his childhood so long ago.  

Discussion

Mangilaluk is a graphic memoir about one Indigenous man's perseverance, resiliency and tenacity. 

Bernard Andreason was born in an Inuvailuit hamlet, Tuktuyaaqtuuqt, Northwest Territories in 1961. As a child he was sent to Stringer Hall Residential School in Inuvik, NT. On June 23, 1972, Bernard, along with two friends, thirteen-year-old Dennis Dick and eleven-year-old Lawrence Jack Elanik decided to runaway from the school. Dennis had stolen a pack of  cigarettes from one of the dorm supervisors. They knew the punishment would be severe and so they decided to walk home to Tuktuyaaqtuuqt, despite the fact that in two days time, they would be flown home for the summer.

In 1972, there was no road from Inuvik to Tuktuyaaqtuuqt, an Inuvialuit community of the shores of the Arctic Ocean. The three boys decided to make the one hundred thirty kilometer journey on foot, wearing only the clothes on their backs. They began their journey by following the telephone poles through the tundra and bush. Andreason stated that they believed they could make the journey in several days. It was June so the sun shone all day and at the start of their walk, the weather was sunny and warm. They were able to eat berries and found plenty of fresh water to drink.

However, after a few days the weather changed, becoming cloudy and rainy. When they were unable to cross a raging river, Jack Elanik was beginning to feel unwell. At this point, Andreason wanted to return to Inuvik because Jack was sick, but Dennis decided to continue onward. They never saw him again. Eventually Jack became too sick to continue on. Making his friend as comfortable as possible, Andreason set out once again for Tuktuyaaqtuuqt. For two weeks he continued walking, alone. Because of the twenty-four hour daylight, Andreason often lost track of time and would hallucinate. 

Andreason was eventually found eight kilometers south of Tuktuyaaqtuuqt, in early July, walking the NCPC powerline. He was spotted by an Eldorado helicopter pilot flying between Inuviut and Tuktuyaaqtuuqt. Upon his rescue Andreason was taken to the nursing station in the community suffering from exposure. When Andreason was rescued, he believed he had only been walking for two days instead of weeks.  Jack Elanik was eventually found dead but Dennis Dick's body was never recovered.

This tragic event would have significant repercussions in Bernard Andreason's life. The loss of his friends led to survivor guilt which was compounded by growing up in a dysfunctional family, and later on by alcoholism, and an HIV diagnosis. It seems that without a supportive family and the loss of his cultural identity, Bernard struggled throughout much of his life. 

Despite this, Mangilaluk is a story of tenacity, perseverance and determination. Bernard's HIV diagnosis came at a time when he was making significant progress in his life. One wonders, had he the support of a loving family, how things might have been different. As an Indigenous person, already somewhat marginalized, the HIV diagnosis would have exacerbated his feelings of isolation and lack of belonging. However, he managed to seek out better treatment protocols in Vancouver and restart his life by upgrading his education at NEC.  

Although Bernard succumbed again to his demons and ended up on the streets, this time in Prince George, he managed to return to Vancouver to get himself well again. And showing great courage, Andreason agreed to participate in a reconciliation ceremony that would address what happened to Andreason and his two friends so long ago. It would be a healing ceremony that would follow a speaking engagement to students in Inuvit. Andreason undertook this despite his self-doubts. 
He would have to face his family and face the devastating memories of what happened back when he was an eleven-year-old boy. 

"The ceremony was beautiful. Every moment was infused with a love and respect I had only just begun to understand was possible for me. And I received it. I opened my heart and I let them in to help heal it. I felt the power or their prayers over me and the admiration of all these people who felt I had lived a life worth honouring. I felt my story come alive, and I felt a weight lift from my shoulders...." This ceremony was healing for Bernard, whose Indigenous name is Mangilaluk. 

Bernard Andreason's story is told through the beautiful artwork of Mark Gallo, whose colourful panels are effective in portraying the emotions, and settings. Mangilaluk is another significant contribution to the Indigenous experience in Canada.

Book Details:

Mangilaluk by Bernard Andreason

Iqualuit, Nunavut: Inhabit Education Books Inc.
96 pp.

In The Tunnel by Julie Lee

In The Tunnel is the follow-up novel to Julie Lee's debut, Brother's Keeper.  The novel opens in October, 1952 with sixteen-year-old Myung-gi Kim and other young South Korean soldiers running up a hill when a grenade flashes in front of him. He falls down the hill breaking his ankle and rolls into part of the enemy tunnel dug by Chinese soldiers. The tunnel collapses trapping Myung-gi in a portion that is four feet long by five feet high. In other parts of the tunnel, Myung-gi hears South Korean soldiers fighting North Koreans and their Chinese allies.

Now trapped, Myung-gi flits back and forth between the present situation and the years leading up to this moment. These memories begin when he was nine-years-old in 1945 when he had the Japanese name, Ichiro and Korea was occupied by Japan. On August 15th, the Japanese surrender, having lost the war in the Pacific. His father, Kim Junho (Ahpa)  tells Myung-gi his real name is Kim Myung-gi and that his seven-year-old sister's name is no longer Hideko but Yoomee. They live in Changang Province. Myung-gi is smart, loves to read and gets good grades in school.

But for Myung-gi and his family, freedom lasted only one night, as the Japanese soldiers were replaced by Soviet soldiers soon they learned "that Korea had been divided in half at the 38th parallel...the Soviets occupying the North and the United States occupying the South." While some believe the Soviets are their liberators from Japanese oppression and protecting them from the imperialist Americans, Myung-gi notices Ahpa isn't happy. He tells them the Soviet soldiers are looting homes and decides they will get rid of their valuables. Ahpa also makes Uhma remove her makeup and her jewels and to wear only her plainest clothing so she doesn't attract the attention of the Soviet soldiers.

A year later, life under Soviet rule is even worse than under the Japanese. The soldiers take what they want including most of the harvest, leaving little food for the Koreans. As a result, people are starving and factories close. Ahpa's fabric business has closed because people cannot afford new clothes. He now works as the principal of the boys' school that Myung-gi attends. Ahpa and Myung-gi travel by bus to the city where visit a bookseller. On the bus Myung-gi tells his father he aspires to be a writer. Myung-gi loves "...al kinds of books - history books, fantasy books, even the nonfiction ones that made his eyes grow wide in wonder." At the bookshop, the shop owner tells Ahpa that the authorities told him he cannot sell European American or Japanese books or even Korean books if they are against communism.

By 1948, North Korea is now a Communist state, twelve-year-old Myung-gi meets his friend Sora, bringing her a folktale book and a book of Kim Sowol's poems. As they sit underneath the willow tree, Myung-gi is attacked and beaten by a group of boys accusing him of wanting the Americans to save him.

In September of 1949, Myung-gi witnesses an older boy, Yongshik from his school, kidnapped by soldiers on his way to school. That evening Ahpa brings Myung-gi more books: Twenty thousand Leagues Under The Sea and Ivanhoe. Ahpa has taught Myung-gi several language including English. To hide these banned books, Ahpa cuts a hole in the wall behind Myung-gi's wardrobe.

In June of 1950, Myung-gi is now fourteen years old. He has read through a large number of banned books from Frankenstein to Kim Yeoung-nang's poems. Then one Sunday morning upon arriving at the school for the mandatory weekly communist youth meeting, Myung-gi encounters a huge commotion. Comrade Lee announces that South Korean forces have invaded the North and also that the boys' school has a new principal, Comrade Ahn. This shocks Myung-gi and he races home.

At home, Ahpa tells Uhma, Myung-gi and Yoomee that he was let go and that his work organizing student protests and getting banned books may be to blame. Uhma is terrified at this revelation, worried that Ahpa may be taken away. But Ahpa tells her he has been planning their escape to the south for years, and now with the war as a distraction, it is time to leave. They are to head one hundred miles south, to the mouth of the Yesong River at the Yellow Sea. From there, boats are smuggling people south, to the west coast of South Korea. They will then take a boat to Inchon and walk to Busan on the southern coast.

Ahpa tells them they will leave in a few days after he's confirmed the boat and speaks to the Paks to offer them the chance to accompany them. Ahpa also tells his family that should anything happen to him. they should leave at once and follow the escape route. He tells Myung-gi not to be afraid to go on without him and that they should ask for Ko Jusung when they get to the Yesong River.

For several days, Myung-gi goes to school while his mother packs rice, clothing and money. After school one day, Ahpa tells Myung-gi to keep watch for anything suspicious while he continues to pack the jigeh back carrier.  So Myung-gi takes a book about the solar systme with him and sits behind the house on the other side of the wall to read. As a result, he doesn't see the army men creeping along the side of the house and doesn't warn Ahpa. He learns of their presence by the sounds of struggle inside the house. Too late, he sees Ahpa being pushed out of the house, his hands bound behind his back, his eye swoolen and his face bruised. His father is pushed into a car and taken away. Shame floods Myung-gi. He was supposed to keep watch. When Uhuma and Yoomee arrive home, Myung-gi tells them what happened.

Shock quickly leads to indecision as to what to do. Myung-gi tells them that Ahpa has said if anything should happen to him, they need to follow the escape plan and he would meet them in Busan. After careful consideration, Uhma decides they will do what Ahpa asks.

For Myung-gi, the journey south is filled with anger and shame that he failed to protect his father and that he is not the man his father is. In a desperate attempt to redeem himself, he signs up to fight the Communists will be the beginning of self-forgiveness, acceptance and learning to live amid profound loss. 

Discussion

In The Tunnel is the second book about the Korean War written by Julie Lee. The novel was born out of Lee's research for her first book, Brother's Keeper which showed that stories like Myung-gi's were a reality: children who were never reunited with family, and child soldiers who were used in a war and never later acknowledged. Lee decided she had to write a story "...in which wrongs inflicted upon the characters were never righted... about this history, because sometimes life is terribly unfair, and I needed to figure out a way to reconcile this reality with being able to move on and be happy..."

The novel features a story within a story, opening with sixteen-year-old Myung-gi Kim fighting the North Koreans in a battle that came to be known as The Battle of Triangle Hill which occurred in the Osong Mountain region from October 14 to November 25, 1952. This was a fierce battle that saw the United States and Republic of Korea Army gain ground, forcing the Chinese to hide in the tunnels they had dug. During the night, the Chinese would regain the territory they lost during the day. Myung-gi, who joined the ROKA with the objective of finding his father, is trapped in one of these tunnels during an attack on the hill. While in the tunnel, Myung-gi remembers back to how this all started in 1945 with the end of World War II and the retreat of the Japanese who had occupied Korea. But instead of freedom, Myung-gi and his family experience increasing oppression and terror as North Korea becomes a communist state. The two stories eventually merge with Myung-gi struggling to survive in the tunnel, while at the same time talking to an enemy Chinese soldier trapped in a separate but adjacent part of the tunnel.

In the flashbacks, the reader learns that Myung-gi's father is kidnapped by North Korean soldiers for his anti-communist resistance. His nose in a book, Myung-gi fails to warn his father of the soldiers and as a result he blames himself for his father being taken. But prior to this, Myung-gi is already filled with self-doubt, believing he doesn't measure up to his father. On a trip to the bookseller to buy books banned by the state, Myung-gi's father questions him about which career he aspires to, principal or professor. Myung-gi reveals he wants to be neither, but instead a writer. Ahpa's response to this makes Myung-gi wonder, "Maybe a writer wasn't big enough, important enough." Later on when Myung-gi is badly beaten by a group of boys, he lies to his parents about what happened because he is ashamed about not being able defend himself. "Ahpa would've never lost a fight, not with his judo and street smarts and muscles."

Once  Myung-gi and his family are safely in the south and living in Busan, he continues to struggle with what he believes was his failure to protect his father, with the cultural expectations as the only son and with what his father told him, "Don't be afraid to go on without me." Several times, every day, Myung-gi visits the church where refugees are camped on the lawn, asking if anyone has seen his father. Unable to sleep, and not interested in school Myung-gi begins carrying water to make some money for his family. When Myung-gi is identified as one of several boys who are recommended to take the specialty high school entrance exam in a month's time, he is filled deeply conflicted,  "Because the idea of applying to a specialty high school felt a lot like moving on...which felt a lot like giving up on Ahpa... He wasn't ready to start something new without Ahpa."

After Uhma cuts her hair to make money to buy them new shoes, Myung-gi decides to leave school. He is still overwhelmed with guilt for reading when he should have been watching for the North Korean soldiers and cannot bear to pick up a book. He also learns that with the Chinese joining the war, Northern refugees can no longer cross the 38th parallel anymore, meaning that the likelihood Ahpa will escape is now slim. In desperation, Myung-gi decides to enlist, with the hope that being in the North he will be able to find Ahpa and bring him back. "It was his fault Ahpa got taken -- now it was up to him to get his father back. If something happened to Myung-gi in the process, well, that would be the punishment he deserved." This desperate act shocks Uhma, Yoomee, Sora and their families.

Trapped in the tunnel and facing death, Myung-gi faces the prospect of dying alone. With only a small mouse for company, Myung-gi begins to remember some passages from the banned books he's read like Les Misérables by Victor Hugo and The Hobbit by Tolkien. He realizes that as Victor Hugo wrote in his novel,  his own father loved him in spite of all his weaknesses and inadequacies. And after three years  of futile hoping and wishing, Myung-gi remembers to words of Victor Hugo,  "... that it is frightful not to live." As Myung-gi comes to the realization he will not be able to find his father in this war, he want his father to be happy and to live his best life. "But if you're alive, don't be sad, don't stop living, don't spend your days alone. Find a family you can love, and who will love you back -- because we can't be with you anymore. I can't be with you anymore. Be happy!"

As Myung-gi is being rescued his entire perspective has changed: he will live his life as it is now, to the fullest. "And soon he will be set down in the right place -- at home, in Busan, where he will hug Uhma tight and thank her for being both mother and father. Where he will tell his artist sister how proud he is of her and then gaze upon her portrait of their father. Where he will go to Sora, the girl he will always love, and finally say he is sorry...Where he will dig up that book from Teacher Chun and read it from beginning to end. Where he will take that entrance exam and hope for the best. Where he will write their history, his family's, the one he already started. Where he will finally do as his father said and not be afraid to go on without him." Myung-gi, being extracted from the tunnel, experiences a rebirth, coming to accept what he cannot change, that his father is gone and that they likely will not meet again in this life. He realizes that he must go on and live his life and that Ahpa foresaw this possibility and gave him the permission to do so. In the Epilogue, readers learn how well Myung-gi fulfilled his father's desire for him.

The Korean War ended in a stalemate, with an armistice signed on July 27, 1953 in Panmunjom by officials from North and South Korea, The People's Republic of China and the United States. According to the Korean Red Cross, nearly ten million families were separated due to the Korean War. What was originally believed to be a temporary situation has resulted in these millions being denied the basic human right to reunification of their families for the past seventy years. Although there have been some state-sanctioned visits, as the years pass, older members of families are passing on, while younger members suffer from the lack of connection with older family members like grandparents, parents and aunts and uncles. There is not only this trauma, but brief, temporary reunification of families also causes tremendous trauma. 

In The Tunnel portrays the trauma of separation experienced by Myung-gi and his family but also the trauma he experienced as a child soldier. Myung-gi was one of at least thirty-thousand child soldiers conscripted into the war by South Korea. Some of these soldiers enlisted, intent upon finding lost family members as Myung-gi did.  

In The Tunnel is one of several recent novels to explore the Korean War from the perspective of children. The novel offers readers the themes of forgiveness, the effects of war on civilians including the separation of families, the refugee experience, and living without a resolution to that separation.

Book Details:

In The Tunnel by Julie Lee
New York: Holiday House    2023
332 pp.

Suliewey by Mi'sel Joe and Sheila O'Neill

Suliewey is the sequel to My Indian by Sawamw Mi'sel Joe, continuing the story of Mi'kmaw guide Suliwey (Sylvester Joe) as he searches for the last remaining Beothuk.

Suliewey has left the white man William Cormack in Nujioqollek, after guiding him during the fall,  across the island in search of the last Beothuk. The Elders had cautioned Suliewey to instead guide Cormack away from the Beothuk camps which he willingly did. Cormack had wanted Suliewey to accompany him by schooner back to St. John's, as far as Bay d'Espoir and even onto Spain or Portugal. But Suliewey wanted to see how his Beothuk brothers and sisters were managing to stay safe, hoping to find their winter camps. His plan is to travel to his friend, Gabriel's camp, then to Miawpukek. However, as Suliewey is leaving Chief Gontgont's house, the chief comes out and asks Suliewey to stay over longer, until the snow hardens. Chief Gontgont tells him that he will be able to rest more and eat well and perhaps learn more about the Beothuk winter camps from returning Mi'kmaw trappers.

Suliewey agrees and stays with Chief Gontgont. He is given several gifts including "...a beautiful qalipu hide bag made by his wife..." that could be used as both a bundle or a bed. The Mi'kmaw trappers have no new information to offer to Suliewey regarding the Beothuk winter camp. They tell him "...it was as if the Beothuk were hibernating like the Mui'n do during the winter." This does give Suliewey a potential clue as to where and how he might find the Beothuk.

Eventually Suliewey begins his journey "...to find the winter camp of the last of the remaining Beothuk." Chief Gontgont walks a short ways with Suliewey who leaves with gifts of snowshoes, skin boots, qalipu skin coat and the sleeping bag. He tells Suliewey to stop by Gabriel's camp to rest before journeying to Miawpukek to see his family.

After five days, Suliewey reaches Gabriel's camp on Hatchet Pond where he finds a note from Gabriel that they are taking their ill daughter to St. George's Bay to see the medicine woman. They have left some food for him in their wikuom. Suliewey wonders how the Beothuk are doing as they have been driven from the coast which supplies their food of salmon, seal, eggs and shellfish. He decides to head northeast and not travel to Miawpukek. As he journeys, Suliewey continues to look for smoke rising, believing that will be a sign of a Beothuk camp.

At this time, a large grey wolf appears at Suliewey's camp. At first he throws sticks of wood from his fire to drive the wolf away. But later after snaring a kopit, Suliewey throws bits of meat to the hungry wolf. As the wolf continues to follow him on his travels, Suliewey names him Hungry and they soon grow to tolerate one another.

In his travels, Suliewey discovers a Beothuk summer campsite near a lake along with a birchbark gwitn. Back at his brook camp, Suliewey encounters a mysterious woman who has lu'skinikin cooking and has made tea. The woman tells Suliewey he must go back. He decides to return to the Beothuk summer camp to search for any clues as to where "...they spend their winters and how man of them are left, of the hundreds of Beothuk people who lived on this land before the arrival of the aqualasiew." He does find a circle of stones outside the wikuom with an arrowhead pointing south and believes that this might a hint as to where he should travel. 

With Hungry sometimes following, sometimes leading, Suliewey travels along the lake and finds another wikuom, this time with more signs: an unfinished stone pipe and a qalipu leg bone scrapper. Because the stone may have come from Pipe Stone Pond, Suliewey decides to travel there.  Near Pipe Stone Pond, Suliewey discovers an abandoned wkuom and a cave containing the remains of a young pregnant woman her unborn baby. The hole in her skeleton tells Suliewey that she died from being shot by a musket ball.

After this sad discovery, Suliewey decides it is time to return to his family in Maiwpukek. His whole village celebrates his return with a meal, and set up the sweat lodge to pray and give thanks for his safe return. He decides he will continue his search for the Beothuk people in the late fall and through the winter. He wants to help them and keep them safe. Suliewey's search will almost cost him his life, but it will also reveal the last remnants of the Beothuk and their desperate struggle to survive. As the Beothuk once saved Suliewey's grandfather, he will now return the favour.

Discussion

In the first book, My Indian, Suliewey recounts his journey with the white man, Cormack to find the remaining Beothuk. In this sequel, Suliewey recounts his own journey to find the last of the Beothuk and offer his help. 

The Beothuk, in the pre-contact era, were an aboriginal coastal people who lived in small bands in Newfoundland. In the pre-contact era there were likely less than one thousand of these Algonkian hunter-gatherers who survived on seal, salmon, and sea birds and their eggs. These were preserved as food stores for the harsh winter months.  The Beothuk painted their bodies, homes, canoes and weapons with red ochre. It was considered an integral part of their identity and newborns were painted to welcome them into the tribe. 

With the coming of the Europeans, the Beothuk were forced out of their traditional coastal hunting grounds. This often led to conflict between the two with the Beothuk usually on the losing end. Unlike other Indigenous peoples, they avoided contact with Europeans. This meant moving further inland away from the seals, salmon and sea birds and forced the Beothuk to hunt caribou. This was not enough to sustain the Beothuk and they began to starve. It is likely that the loss of their traditional hunting grounds and food sources, exposure to the European diseases of smallpox and tuberculosis, and deadly encounters with English and French trappers and fisherman were the cause of their extinction.

The Mi'kmaw people have long maintained they are related to the Beothuk. Recent genetic research has shown that there are genetic descendants of the Beothuk people in Newfoundland and Labrador. The research used DNA harvested from the molars of Demasduit and her husband, Nonosabsut who were the aunt and uncle of Shanawduit, the last known member of the Beothuk. Demasduit was kidnapped by a European trapper, John Peyton Jr. in 1819. Nonosabsut was murdered attempting to rescue her. Demasduit was eventually taken to St. John's, living with her captor as a servant. She died in 1820 of tuberculosis. Demasduit and Nonosabsut were buried at Red Indian Lake but Newfoundland explorer, William Cormack took their skulls to Edinburgh. They were not repatriated until 2020.

While there are no direct descendants of Demasduit and Nonosabsut, their family tree does have living descendants according to Memorial University professor Steve Carr. His research suggests that the Beothuk had "friendly relationships" with other Indigenous peoples that resulted in family lines that continue today.

It is these friendships between the Indigenous peoples of Newfoundland that becomes an important part of the narrative in Suliewey.  In The Book Club Questions found at the back of the novel, the authors write that the settler narrative has been that these two peoples were enemies. This goes against Mi'kmaw oral history.  In an attempt to reclaim this narrative, we see that Suliewey considers the Beothuk his brothers and sisters and wants to help them. His own grandfather was cared for by the Beothuk. 

In Suliewey, the young Mi'kmaw Suliewey eventually does find a small remnant of Beothuk, including a young woman. Her husband has died and she is the only woman in the group that consists of her great-grandfather, her brother, and four Elders. At the request of her grandmother, Suliewey agrees to marry the beautiful, young woman and they have a daughter together.  The Book Club Questions state, "... that the authors wanted to offer possible context to the recent Beothuk DNA studies conducted by Miawpukek First Nation in partnership with Terra Nova Genomics... which provides evidence of a possible survival of Beothuk genetic lineage in modern populations of Mi'kmaq."  

Suliewey is filled with many interesting descriptions of Mi'kmaq knowledge in living off the land, particularly in the frigid winter months. There are descriptions of building a healing lodge and making medicine to heal consumption, as well as spiritual rituals such has leaving offerings to the spirits and praying to the Creator for safety. Mi'sel Joe uses Suliewey to inform readers about many different types of Indigenous knowledge including making various types of camps in caves and in the forest, making a narrow type of snowshoes, tanning a kopit pelt, smoking meat, and fashioning a bow and arrows along with a quiver, a spear and other tools. Suliewey describes how most parts of the kopit and the qalipu are used by the Mi'kmaq. Through the main character of Suliewey, readers come to know the deep connection between the Mi'kmaq and the land and the animals. After Suliewey sets a trap for a mui'n he sees that the animal is old and changes his mind, out of respect and also because he takes only what he needs.

As a result of the detailed descriptions of Indigenous knowledge, the first half of the novel may seem slow and uninteresting to some readers. However, there is foreshadowing in the novel, especially at the beginning when Suliewey dreams of "a beautiful young woman with long black hair and red skin." This foreshadows his meeting of the beautiful Beothuk woman who he names Wtatapn, and who helps Suliewey heal from the injuries of his fall and whom he marries. 

Suliewey's fall off a cliff is an unexpected plot twist that forces the meeting between himself and the remaining Beothuk who have hidden inside a long cave. There his broken leg is set and he is cared for.  From an Elder and Great-Grandfather, Suliewey learns of the Beothuk's struggle to survive with the coming of the Europeans. The cave they are wintering in has drawings that portray their history and their struggles. Great-grandfather tells how the Beothuk were cheated in trades with the white men, how their women were captured and enslaved, how the long guns allowed the white men to kill them easily, and how their food was taken leaving them will little food to hunt and store. When Suliewey learns their story he is heartbroken for them and promises to tell their story so it doesn't fade into history. 

Suliewey comes to help the Beothuk in a way he least suspects: the young woman's great-grandfather asks him to marry her and take her in the Mi'kmaq tribe as a way of protecting her and continuing the Beothuk line. Suliewey agrees to do this and they are married. To protect Wtatapn, Suliewey tells her she must remove the red ochre and dress like the Mi'kmaq, otherwise the white men will know she is a Beothuk. For Wtatapn, this means giving up her identity as a Beothuk, in order to survive. This final act highlights the price Wtatapn must pay to survive and it also reminds readers of the loss of identity and culture that many Indigenous peoples paid as a result of European contact.

While Suliewey is a tragic story about the last remnants of the Beothuk, it is also one of hope. Although culturally the Beothuk did not survive, it would seem that, as Mi'kmaq oral history and modern DNA analysis indicate, there were some Beothuk who integrated into other Indigenous peoples, producing descendants. Suliewey is highly recommended for those readers who wish to know the Beothuk story from an Indigenous perspective.

Book Details:

Suliewey by Mi'sel Joe and Sheila O'Neill
St. John's, NL: Breakwater Books     2023
202 pp.

Fighting For America: Nisei Soldiers by Lawrence Matsuda and Matt Sasaki

In Fighting For America: Nisei Soldiers, six Nisei soldiers from the Pacific Northwest are profiled. All six men are now deceased. These are Army medics Jimmie Kanaya and Tosh Yasutake, Army Infantrymen Frank Nishimura and Turk Suzuki, Army Infantry Sergeant Shiro Kashino and Military Intelligence Roy Matsumoto. All were members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT) or MIS.

First profiled is Shiro Kashino's experiences. He was born in 1922 in Seattle, Washington, the sixth child of Bujinosuke Kashino and Hatsume Oda. His family had lived in Denver, Colorado but moved to Seattle. Shiro was raised by his older siblings from the age of thirteen, after the deaths of his mother in 1934 and his father in 1935. 

A good athlete, Shiro received a football scholarship to Willamette University in Oregon but he never attended. Shiro delayed attending to work and earn money first and then Pear Harbor happened. Shiro ended up at Minidoka War Relocation Center in Idaho. He volunteered for the 442 RCT in 1943 and "fought in all the major battles of the European campaigns."

The second profile is of Frank Nishimura who was born in 1924 in Seattle, Washington to Ritoji and Kiku Nishimura. Frank had five older siblings: Toshimi, Shizuko, Hiromi, Yuki and Toyo. HIs parents brought and sold hotels through a Jewish attorney as Japanese nationals could not purchase land in Washington state.

Frank attended Cascade and Bailey Gatzert School. Like many Japanese children he attended the Japanese Community Language School after regular school. In the fall of 1938, he was enrolled at Broadway High School. Frank was a newspaper carrier for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He delivered papers in his 1937 Plymouth automobile that he had purchased used.

Life was carefree and good for Frank and his friends: they went to various beaches to clam and picnic. They also attended the annual Japanese Community Day at Seattle's Playland Amusement Park. But life took a drastic change on December 7, 1941.

Jimmie Kanaya was born on October 3, 1920 to parents who were farmers in Clackamas, Oregon. He enlisted in the U.S. Army when he was twenty-years-old and became a medic. In 1942 when Japanese and Japanese-Americans were sent to concentrations camps, Jimmie accompanied his family to the temporary detention center, Portland Assembly Center. However, because he was in his U.S. Army uniform, he wasn't allowed in with his parents, brother and sister.

He was stationed at Camp Crowder upon completing his medic training, then transferred to Camp Shelby in Mississippi. From there Jimmie was assigned as a medic to the all Japanese-American 442 RCT. As part of the 34th Infantry Division, Jimmie saw action in Italy and then in France with the 36th Infantry Division. He was captured by the Germans in the Vosges Mountains while attempting to evacuate wounded soldiers. Jimmie was taken to a prisoner of war camp for officers, Oflag 64 which was located in Szubin, Poland. When the Red Army occupied Poland and German forces fled, Jimmie and the other prisoners were marched four hundred miles to Hammelburg, Germany and another camp. The death march was done in subzero temperatures in deep snow.

The fourth profile is that of Roy Hiroshi Matsumoto who served with the 5307th Composite Unit in Burma as a Military Intelligence Service language interpreter. This unit was nicknamed Merrill's Marauders after Brigadier General Frank Merrill.

Roy was born in Laguna, California on May 1, 1913. He was sent to Hiroshima, Japan to attend Japanese school when he was eight-years-old. When Roy was seventeen, he and his brother returned to the United States while his parents and family remained in Japan. After graduating from Long Beach Polytechnic High School in 1933, Roy worked at a Japanese grocery stroy where he learned many different Japanese dialects. 

After Pearl Harbor, Roy was sent to the concentration camp at Jerome, Arkansas. He volunteered to serve in the U.S. Army as a Japanese language specialist. Merrill's Marauders was tasked with opening the Burma Road connecting India and China.

Tosh Yasutake's father Jack left Japan in 1907 when he was sixteen-years-old to live in San Francisco. He did not wish to be a farmer like his father. Jack attended high school and then Stanford University studying engineering. He left his university studies in the U.S. travelling to Japan to marry Hideko Shiraki in 1918, and returning to the States after the marriage where he was hired as a translator for the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Their first son, Seiichi, was born in 1920. Tosh was the second oldest of four boys: he was born in 1922, followed by his brother Mitsuye born a year later in Japan and the youngest brother Joe who was born in 1932. 

Because Jack and Hideko were Japanese Nationals, they were not allowed by law to purchase land in Washington State, so they had an INS secretary do so for them. Tosh attended Beacon Hill School, then Cleveland High School and was studying science at the University of Washington when Pear Harbor happened in December of 1941. The very next day, FBI agents came to the Yasutake home for Jack who was not at home. Jack was arrested at the Japanese poetry club meeting he was attending and incarcerated in various concentrations camps. At this time Tosh left his studies at the university.

The entire family including Jack were incarcerated at Minidoka War Relocation Center concentration camp. In April, 1942, Tosh and his siblings along with their mother Hideko were taken from the Seattle area to the WCCA Puyallup Assembly Center.

Teruyuki "Turk" Suzuki was born in 1923. Unlike the other Nisei profiled in Fighting for America, both his parents were college graduates and Christians educated in Japan. Turk's father had also served in the Japanese Navy prior to the war. The Suzuki's immigrated to Seattle and operated a hotel called the Spring Lodge Hotel located near the downtown library. Turk and his friends loved to play in the area.

Teruyuki got his nickname from a good friend, Willie who could not pronounce his name. Turk's four siblings were also given American names when they entered school. All the Suzuki children walked to Baily Gatzert School located east of Japantown.

Even though Turk's parents could not become American citizens (this wasn't possible until 1952), his father stressed to him that he was an American citizen. Like Tosh's father Jack, Turk's father was also arrested after Pearl Harbor and taken to the INS building. And like Turk, Tosh also joined the 442nd all Japanese-American RCT.

Discussion

Fighting For America is an intimate look at the war from the perspective of six Japanese American soldiers and their families. Fighting For America is divided into six chapters, each featuring the biography of one of six Nisei soldiers. What started as a graphic novel on Nisei veteran Shiro Kashino, quickly expanded into a project that included the "personal war accounts of other Nisei veterans Frank Nishimura, Jimmie Kanaya, Turk Suzuki, Roy Matsumoto, and Tosh Yasutake."  Each chapter begins with an Introduction, followed by a series of graphic novel panels detailing some aspect of each soldier's life based on their personal experiences and closing with an Epilogue about their life in the post-war period as well as photographs of the men . Each account tells of the incarceration of their families and their combat experiences as part of the most decorated unit for their size in U.S. history. 

In the Introduction, author Lawrence Matsuda writes, "Approximately 14,000 Nisei or second generation Japanese Americans fought as members of the 442 Regimental Combat Team (RCT) during World War II against Germany and Italy. The 442 RCT consisted of three infantry battalions (originally 1st, 2nd and 3rd Battalions, 442 Infantry, and later the 100th Infantry Battalion in place of the 1st.), the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, the 232 Engineer Company, an anti-tank company, cannon company, service company, medical detachment, headquarters companies, and the 206 Army Band." 

For the six men profiled in Fighting For America, life as teenagers and young adults was filled with school, sports and jobs. However, their parents bore the brunt of the discrimination so common at that time: they could not become American citizens and couldn't own property. With the bombing of Pearl Harbor, life changed quickly and drastically: fathers were jailed, they lost their homes, businesses and possessions, school ended and they were forced into concentration camps with guards and barbed wire.

Nisei volunteered from the mainland United States and Hawai'i. Most from the mainland volunteered after being incarcerated in concentration camps. They would go on to fight in France, liberating towns and in Italy overtaking German positions blocking the Allies path into Europe. That the Nisei would volunteer to fight for a country that treated them and their families so terribly is all the more remarkable and reflects the loyalty, patriotism, and bravery of these men and their families. As Matsuda writes in his Foreword, "The story must never be forgotten for it was their heroics that opened the doors for future generations of Japanese Americans."

Despite their tremendous personal sacrifices and patriotism for their country, many Nisei continued to experience discrimination and prejudice in the post-war period. Frank Nishimura found it difficult to purchase a home and was told he would never be hired as a welder. Shiro Kashino was certified in refrigeration and air conditioning but faced discrimination from unions in Seattle. Despite this climate of systemic racism, all six men made significant contributions to America. Turk Suzuki had a long career as an engineer and Tosh Yasutake had a distinguished career as a fish histologist. Jimmie Kanaya had a long army career reaching the rank of colonel while Roy Matsumoto became a career Army soldier. Frank Nishimura was an amazing scoutmaster and a postal worker, while Shiro Kashino worked for forty-four years in the automotive industry. 

The artwork of illustrator Matt Sasaki ably portrays the many emotions of the events experienced by the soldiers and their families, whether it be the fear and worry of impending incarceration, the joy of being with family. the desolation and anger at the lost of friends and comrades, or the terror and violence of combat.

Fighting For America serves to remind readers that the experiences of Nisei and their families during World War II demonstrate the incredible patriotism, loyalty, and self-sacrifice made for the country that treated them so badly. It also highlights the forgiveness, industriousness, humility and charity they offered the American people, in spite of that discrimination. 

Book Details:

Fighting For America: Nisei Soldiers by Lawrence Matsuda
Seattle: Chin Music Press     2023
167 pp.