When My Name Was Keoko By: Linda Sue Park

When My Name Was Keoko, is about a brother and sister in Japanese occupied Korea in 1940 to 1945.Their names are Sun-hee and Tae-yul. Sun-hee and  Tae-yul alternate as narrators of separate chapters, almost like a diary of each child’s experiences. They explain Korean customs and historical events. 

Sun-hee is a smart and curious girl, she ask many questions and loves school.

Tae-yul on the other hand likes things that are mechanical. He helps his uncle fix the printing presses at his print shop. Tae-yul even made his own bicycle from only an old bicycle frame with his uncle.

Korea is not it’s own country, it’s occupied by Japan. Korea was occupied by Japan from 1910 to 1945. When the book starts it tells how a new Japanese law was passed and they all had to change their names from Korean names to Japanese names. Sun-hee and Tae-yuls father chose Kaneyama as their Japanese family name and Sun-hee chose Keoko as her Japanese name. Tae-yul chose Nobuo as his Japanese name. The Japanese rulers have tried to wipe out Korean culture by requiring schools to teach Japanese. They have banned teaching of Korean language and history, printing of Korean newspapers, and conversing in public in Korean. As the Japanese become more and more opressive it seems that Uncle is warming up to them, getting many additional printing jobs from them. Sun-hee and Tae-yul are wondering if their highly pro-Korea Uncle has suddenly become Chin-il-pa, a “lover of Japan.” Sun-hee and Tae-yul decide to investigate Uncle’s activities, only to discover that he not Chin-il-pa, but working for the Korean resistance movement. His friendliness towards the Japanese is an attempt to keep from causing suspicion. One night, Sun-hee’s old Japanese friend Tomo comes by to hint that Uncle is in danger. Sun-hee immediately warns her Uncle and he disappears.

The Japanese Government continues to make life very hard for the Koreans, asking for more and more to be sacrificed for the Emperor. And they become even harsher and more demanding as they begin to lose the war. Families are forced to give up metal including pots and pans and their jewelry to be melted into munitions. Small acts of defiance follow these demands – Sun-hee’s mother hides a meaningful dragon brooch. When her rows of Sharon trees, which had been the national flower of Korea, are ordered cut down and burned, in favor of Japanese Cherry Trees, she has the children save one small tree. They replant it and hide it in the tool shed.

In early 1945, Tae-yul enlists in the Japanese Imperial Army and goes to Seoul for training. He also knows that families of Army volunteers receive better food rations and clothing.In Tae-yul’s seventh week of training, he volunteers for a special attack unit of kamikaze pilots after he overhears Japanese officers talking bad about Korean soldiers’ and their lack of bravery. When sent on a kamikaze mission from Japan, he plans to miss the American ships, but his squadron has to return to base when they cannot find any enemy targets due to heavy cloud cover. In the meantime, the Kim family receives a last letter from Tae-yul written the day before his mission. They think he has died in battle, but he returns after his mission failed due to the weather.

The book ends when Japan looses World War II. Sun-hee and Tae-yul talk about seeing Americans for the first time. Uncle was in Northern Korea when Korea was divided, and he was stuck in North Korea.