This is Shirley Temple in 1935, from a trip to Hawaii.
"In 1926, 12,739 dolls (composition dolls with wigs and sleep eyes and ma-ma voices)were collected from American children and sent to Japan as a token of international friendship. In return, Japanese children contributed their candy-money to have 58 dolls made to be sent to the U.S. These Torei Ningyo (ambassador dolls) were of the type called Ichimatsu (after an 18th-c. actor) and also Furisode ningyo (representing little girls in traditional festival costume); they were 32" tall and elaborately dressed, and often came with their own furniture, tea-sets, and so on. During the war, many of these ningyo were hidden away or destroyed in both countries..."
The rest of this interesting link here.
My own grandfather was career navy, a champion boxer, and later head of military police in Sydney.
In 1923 the Great Kanto Earthquake levelled Tokyo. He stayed a while, as a very young man, with a Japanese family while he and his crewmates helped relief efforts to rebuild the homes that allied planes would be dropping incendary bombs on 20 years later.
He survived the war. My wife's grandfather, in the Imperial Japanese navy, did not.
I've watched my mother-in-law pray in front of a photo of him and his young wife, who never remarried, with offerings of incence. I wonder what would the two men have made of me witnessing this, in the particular circumstance I have?
Somehow I don't think there would have been any problem.
I have a belief in a particular irony: If we were all warriors, there'd be no wars.
