Hotel on The Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford was both bitter and sweet and hard to believe it happened in this counry. The story is told by a 56 year old Chinese man, of his childhood while living in his Seattle neighborhood. Without giving away too much of the story, he was friendly with a Japanese girl who was taken away to live in a Japanese Internment Camp with her family and her entire nighborhood. The story goes back and forth between the 1940′s and 1986. It was gripping to see the story from the same characters’ eyes as a child and then as a man. I read this book with a group of friends and then we found out that the Illinois Holocaust Museum was having an exhibit, The Art of Gaman: Arts & Crafts from the Japanese American Internment. Everything in the exhibit was made by Japanese Americans in US Internment Camps during World War II. More than 2/3 of people in the camps were US citizens. The pieces of art were all made from found objects in the camps as they had no supplies and nothing but bare essentials for living was brought to them. Gaman means to bear dignity and patience. The Holocaust Museum teaches among other things to acknowledge the differences in people. I think this exhibit is in a perfect place. I hope soome of you have time to see it. It is in Illinois until January 15. Then it travels somewhere else.
Dec13
