Chiyo is now 72, and still looks like an eight-year girl. It is no coincidence that I was also eight in 1938 when my missionary aunt Annie Allen brought her over on furlough from Tokyo. By the way, Chiyo means "Long Life", but if she ever completely falls apart, and cannot be repaired, she will be buried, in the Japanese tradition.
Meanwhile her sweet face inexplicably gives some people - and once a confused, frantically barking dog - the creeps. She looks so human - maybe it's her human hair wig. Maybe it's also an aura of love that she always had - beginning with the women in Tokyo who stitched her an extra outfit in silk and brocade when they learned she was for a niece of "Aren-sensei".
Chiyo and Akira
With Chiyo came two boy dolls - one looking about four years old, the other a baby - all three for me and my two younger brothers.
In the early 1980s my brothers discovered the littlest boy doll in my father's basement, and handed him over to me complete with kimono. Ten years later I gave him to a Japanese American girl whose family had lost most of their valuables when sent to detention camp; they managed to bury their Samurai armour, though. Keiko and I named the little guy Akira, a sunshiny name.
Peter brought his doll to me a few years ago, because he thought I might take good care of it. First my husband mended it, then we set about finding a name.
First I checked "Taro" or First Born Son on line, and found it is no longer used on its own much these days, but rather is tacked on to another name, as it had become so ubiquitous as to be impractical.
Then I found two equivalents to "Peter": Isamu meaning Rock and Ishi: Stone.
Both Mary and I agree that Ishitaro has a nice ring to it. And so Ishitaro he is.
