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Photo:
Yukiko Hattori
Yes,
they were perfect as messengers;
only these messengers were about
40 centimeters tall!
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Messengers
of Friendship
Yukiko
Hattori from Japan
In
1927, as many as 12,000 young Messengers
of Friendship arrived in Japan after many
weeks' voyage from the U.S.A. In spite of
the long and hard journey, they were
bravely keeping their friendly smiles on
their lovely faces, which instantly
fascinated Japanese children.
Each
of the young Americans had a special
passport, visa, ticket, a small trunk with
some clothes inside and a number of nice
letters from the children in her hometown.
Yes, they were perfect as messengers; only
these messengers were about 40 centimeters
tall!
Have
you ever heard about these Friendship
Dolls? When Dr. Gulick, an American
missionary who had lived in Japan for
twenty years, observed many Japanese
farmhands suffering from discrimination in
California, he came up with the idea of
sending dolls to Japan to create and
preserve good relationships between the
children of the U.S.A.and Japan.
To
his surprise, his idea was eagerly
supported by more than 2,600,000 people
all over the U.S.A. They donated and
collected money to buy dolls; then made
tiny clothes to dress them and wrote
heart-warming letters to Japanese children
to send with the dolls.
The
program was a great success and it created
better relationships between the children
of the two countries. When World War II
started years later, however, the
authorities in Japan began seeing the
dolls as something related to the enemy
and ordered children to burn them. This
seemed the sad end of the Friendship Dolls
in which so many good-willed people had
been involved.
Fortunately,
not all people lost their common sense,
even in wartime. Some tried to save the
dolls' lives by hiding them somewhere,
taking a great risk. About 200 dolls out
of 12,000 survived the war in this way.
Now
those dolls are well taken care of by
children in various kindergartens and
elementary schools where they are living
peacefully. Though they are already 70
years old, you will see their friendly
smiles have not changed at
all.
More
about Yukiko's dolls:
Memories
of Dolls
| Finding
My Dream
Doll
| Doll
Slide Show
Return
to: A
World of
Dolls
| Issue
3
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