Kazuki Kaneshiro

‘First, let’s get one thing straight. The story that follows is a love story. My love story. And communism – or democratism, pacifism, otakuism, vegetarianism, or any other -ism for that matter – has got nothing to do with it. Just so you know.’

Hovering somewhere between a YA and a ‘grown up’ novel, Kaneshiro’s ‘Go’ has a distinctive voice, the narrator of the ‘love story’, Sugihara. And despite his protestations from the outset, the book is also very much about other show more -isms. Sugihara’s father is what is known by the Japanese as a Zainichi Chosenjin, a North Korean resident of Japan. Despite being born in Japan and never having visited Korea, Sugihara has to carry his resident card with him at all times, and has now taken on South Korean nationality. As a younger child he was educated at a Korean school in Japan, but moved to a Japanese high school in order to further his education. Throughout the novel this racial and cultural tension is prominent, whether in the friends Sugihara has, to his reluctance to admit his heritage to the girl he falls for, Sakurai.

When they meet at a party, Sugihara and Sakurai start a gentle wooing, doing all the things teenagers do: walk, talk, discuss what films and books they like. Sugihara has a difficult relationship with his Marxist father, an ex-boxer, but from whom he has learnt skills to make him the undefeated fighter in his school. Violence is his way of ‘fitting in’, his go-to response in any difficult situation, whether it be in a nightclub or being stopped by police. Sugihara is caught between his past life, with his friends from Korean school, and his future. There are several long discussions in the novel about identity, about what makes us who we are. As events in Sugihara’s life take a tragic turn, he decides to come clean to Sakurai and tell her who he really is. Will their love conquer this? Will Sugihara’s violent past, and troubled family life, hold him back?

I really enjoyed this, although I’m still trying to decide how to classify it; the themes are definitely more involving than a simple a love story. The shocking truth of Japan’s troubled relationship with its Korean past is always a difficult subject, and whilst Sugihara’s narrative voice is suitably ‘teenage’ in its cynicism and off-handedness, it also has a tender, heart-breaking quality as well. At one point, as Sugihara gathers together the items he has borrowed from a friend, he finds a collection of poems by Langston Hughes, a sticky note highlighting the poem ‘Advice’:

Folks, I’m telling you,
birthing is hard
and dying is mean –
so get yourself
a little loving
in between.

Clever, stylish and ultimately a moving story of love, adversity and violence, this is a terrific novel. YA or adult, it doesn’t matter. 5 stars. show less

Contemporary YA romance is pretty far outside my usual wheelhouse, but I had a few days left on my Kindle Unlimited trial and this book caught my eye and I went, "Well, why not?" Very glad I took the punt, because I really enjoyed this book.

The main character, Sugihara, is a 16yo Zainichi Korean, which is to say he's an ethnic Korean whose family has been living in Japan for two generations. They still don't have Japanese citizenship – they have to choose between North Korean or South show more Korean nationality. And the book is quite an insightful glimpse into what it's like (or was like, in 2000 when the book was first written) to grow up as part of such a marginalised community – having to report regularly to the police station to be fingerprinted, not having access to "good" jobs, having the authorities capriciously make decisions against you, etc.

But the book is also a romance: at a party at a nightclub, Sugihara meets Sakurai, a remarkably confident girl who moves quickly to woo him, and so starts a surprisingly fun-to-read teenage romance. They talk about music and book and films and Sakurai fills Sugihara in on all the dating advice being given to teenage girls, which he kinds of responds to with a cute, "oh, OK..." attitude. It's nice. The only real obstacle to their love is that Sugihara is scared that Sakurai won't want to be with him any more if she finds out he's Korean.

I will say that the book is somewhat violent. Sugihara is a bit of a delinquent who gets into fights all the time at school, and his father is an ex-boxer with the same tendency. Even his mum can be prone to flying into violent rages in this book. But the way it's written is sort of cartoony, almost for laughs, which I think a lot of readers will find inappropriate. At any rate, that's the one real reservation I had about this book. Overall it was a pretty fun, quick, easy read. show less

On the surface, this is a wonderful "boy meets girl" story. They have so much in common, except the one difference they can't overcome.

But not too far under the surface, this is a story about racism and acceptance. What really makes us one race vs another, one nationality vs another.

The boy in the story was born and raised in Japan, speaks Japanese as his primary language - but he's considered Korean because his parents are Korean. He learns to speak Korean at school - some of his Korean show more friends don't even learn to speak Korean.

I don't tend to think of Japan as having problems with racism, so this book was very eye-opening. show less

In the Japanese novel Go, Sugihara is a zainichi chosenjin, a Korean national, but resident in Japan, the child of Korean workers conscripted during the Japanese occupation of Korea. His family is originally from Jeju Island, which, again, is a place I’d previously known about as a South Korean holiday destination, but Sugihara’s father changed his citizenship to North Korea to support a brother who followed the call to return to the communist homeland. It’s all a moot point, as show more Sugihara knows, since the family lives in Japan, and has no intention of returning “home” to Korea.

Sugihara chooses to attend an all-Japanese high school, where naturally he goes by his Japanese name, speaks only Japanese and doesn’t mention his background. But the name of his Korean middle school gets out, and so Sugihara spends his break times fighting and defeating his Japanese classmates.

I thought this was going to be a cross-cultural love story, and I wasn’t fully prepared for all of the punching. There is so much violence. Sugihara has never met a face he didn’t want to punch. He trained with his ex-fighter dad, and so he wins when he fights his classmates, friends, ex-friends, and seriously, there’s so much punching. It makes sense, for Sugihara’s narrative and the wider story about Japanese-Korean relations, I just wasn’t expecting so much punching.

Sugihara does meet a Japanese girl who goes by Sakurai. Their teenage romance is appealing and realistic, although he can’t be honest about his family. (If you’re turned off by their over-the-top meet-cute, don’t worry, all will be explained satisfactorily.) Sakurai also seems to be hiding something, as she insists on only using her surname. This story blends the teenage struggles of Sugihara, his high school friends, and Sakurai with the identities of Japanese, Koreans, and those who don’t fit easily into a category. show less