Dolls bind millions in friendship
The last time they were on the same continent was 78 years ago, when Miss Tokushima arrived in the United States and Miss Mary Blanner was about to leave for Japan.
On Thursday, these two original Friendship Dolls shared center stage for Hina Matsuri, the Doll Festival, at the Japanese Cultural Center in Spokane.
Songs, skits and speeches celebrated their story of trans-Pacific friendship. Dr. Sidney Gulick, an American missionary who spent years in Japan, orchestrated a delivery to Japan of 12,739 American dolls, ambassadors of friendship. They arrived in time for Hina Matsuri in 1927. In return, Japan sent 58 oversized dolls to America, in time for Christmas that same year.
Accompanying the dolls were letters from children in both countries. More than 2 million people from each nation were involved in what Gulick dubbed “the Doll Plan.”
“We who desire peace must write it in the hearts of children,” Gulick wrote in his book, “Dolls of Friendship,” published in 1929.
The story of the exchange deeply touched Michiko Takaoka when she read about it in a magazine more than a decade ago.
“It’s a huge grass-roots exchange of friendship,” said Takaoka, director of the cultural center. She is author of a book about the stories of the 45 original Japanese dolls that have been identified in America. “Doll Ambassadors: An Alternate History of U.S.-Japan Relations” is being translated into English and may be on bookshelves in less than two years.
Takaoka decided to revive the exchange program after meeting Miss Tokushima, which is the only original Japanese Friendship Doll in Washington and which has resided at what is now the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture since her arrival in the United States.
“I wanted to share this wonderful story with our students and the American people, especially with children,” Takaoka told the audience of schoolchildren, Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute students, and Spokane and Japanese officials.
This year, 41 schools and institutions from around the nation are receiving a set of two Japanese dolls. Westview and Holmes elementary schools from Spokane and Seltice Elementary from Post Falls were among the beneficiaries.
Hannah Camyn, 7, attended the event with some classmates to accept the dolls on behalf of Westview. Her favorite doll is an Indian one her mother got her for Valentine’s Day, which she says is cool because it’s from another country.
When she was 12, Mitsuko Tanahashi also received a doll from a foreign country: America. She found out who Miss Mary Blanner was after her mother saw a television program about a search for the original dolls. During World War II, when America was considered an enemy to Japan, a teacher hid Miss Mary in a school cupboard to save her from destruction. During the rebuilding of the school in 1963, another teacher found Miss Mary – who had lost her hair and all her clothes save her undergarments – and gave her to Tanahashi.
“When I held her, she opened her eyes, waking up from a long sleep. I remember this moment even now,” Tanahashi said. “I wanted to bring this doll to America for a long time. I wanted to show my sister her home country.”
Up on stage, against a backdrop of American and Japanese flags, Miss Mary and Miss Tokushima were surrounded by dozens of other dolls, ranging from a kimono-clad emperor and empress to a Cabbage Patch Kid and ballerina.
For Takaoka, the dolls carry messages of friendship and represent the millions who reached out.
“Now it’s up to us, my friends,” she appealed to audience members, “whether or not we broaden this path for peace and friendship in the world. Please join us in this noble project.”