TsukuBlog
A Local Perspective on Life in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan.
One of the 331 Surviving “Blue-Eyed Dolls” (Aoi me no ningyo, 青い眼の人形) on Display at Tsuchiura`s History Museum
28 February, 2021
One of the 12,739 “Friendship Dolls” sent to Japan by Americans in the year 1927 – most of them were destroyed during the war (as “Symbols of the Enemy”), but as of this year (2021) 331 of the “Blue-eyed Dolls”, as they were called – a moniker immortalized in a song by lyricist Noguchi Ujo, have been accounted for. This doll had been buried on the grounds of the Tsuchiura Kindergarten.
By Avi Landau
Relations between Japan and the United States during the 1920s, were not moving in a very good direction. On the diplomatic front, the U.S. continuously opposed Japan`s widening encroachment (and influence) on the Asian Continent, and at home there was growing resistance to Japanese (and Chinese) immigration. This wave of xenophobia culminated in the pa