Jimmy Bui 10/7

 Hideo Furukawa - "The Little Woods in Fukushima"

This one is different from the others because it is real, not a story. He starts off carrying his mother's bones to the grave, which is a heavy way to start. She drove a forklift and worked from five in the morning to eleven at night (Kinda sad to see, hard working mom). He almost lost his thumb in a machine when he was in third grade, and his brother saved him. His brother was more like a father to him, which I thought was sweet. Then the earthquake and nuclear meltdown happen, and nobody wants to buy mushrooms anymore, even when there's no radiation on them. Even the sawdust they switched to ended up being radioactive. But his brother says, "Mushrooms are a symbol of nuclear disasters, so there was no way that we could stop."

Yoko Ogawa - "The Memory Police"

This one is a little creepy. Things just disappear on this island, and everyone forgets them, like ribbons, perfume, birds, and roses. Very odd concept, but it kind of makes you think about how much we just let go of without noticing. The mom hiding all the disappeared things in a cabinet. Sad that she got taken and "died of a heart attack". The roses disappearing at the end was weirdly beautiful, the whole river covered in petals. Even the narrator could not remember what a rose looked like after. Scary to think about.

Shion Miura - "The Easy Life in Kamusari"

Yuki's mom basically kicks him out after high school and blackmails him with his poetry book to go do forestry in the middle of nowhere. Then the first guy he meets throws his phone battery in a river. Kinda sad to see. He is honestly terrible at the job at first, falls down the mountain. But Seiichi gives him the house woods to prune so he can build some confidence, which I thought was kind. Nice to see someone actually believe in him. He was at a hostess bar, she leaves, and he punches through a paper door to get her back. Yuki ends up bowing on the floor too just because he's hungry. 

Yoko Tawada - "Scattered All Over the Earth"

Knut is just lying on his couch doing nothing and ends up finding this girl, Hiruko, on TV whose whole country disappeared. She made up her own language so people all over Scandinavia can understand her, which is honestly impressive. I'm a tad confused about the sushi being Finnish part. The part about her hometown with the heated roads and snowshoes that talk was cool. The second chapter is from Hiruko's side, and she tells folktales to immigrant kids with her own drawings. I liked that she changed the stories so the kids could understand them, like the crane making a down jacket. It shows she cares. Now they are going to Trier to find someone who speaks her language, and I am curious to see if they do.