In the memoir Year of impossible goodbyes. Sookan changes from someone who is confused and dependent and becomes someone who is independent and a leader. This change is seen in three moments when Sookan and her family pretends she's not old enough to go to school, when Sookan claps at school when the boy says that the japanese were wrong, and when Sookan hears imperial soldiers behind her and she kept going. In the beginning of the book Sookan’s family pretends Sookan is not old enough to go to school. Sookan says “I was almost ten and should have been in japanese school. But as i was small for my age, Mother had been able to avoid registering me”(4,5). This shows how sookan is dependent, that she needs others to lie for her and protect
