"Dear Pen Pal,
Some day we shall meet..."
An American teen-ager wrote this years ago
and made it come true in a way that says a Jot about youth the world over
By CAROL JSIRANDANIS as told to John M. Ross
When allen coutu handed me a letter that day
in the seventh grade, I had no idea it would
eventually become a passport for a magic-carpet-fike
flight into another world.
The letter was from a teen-age Japanese girl in
Tokyo, who had been Allen's pen pal for several
months. She wrote about the strange and fasci
nating life in the Orient and told of her desire to
know more about other people of the world. Her
English was simple, sometimes faltering, but it
held me spellbound.
"Gee, Allen, how'd you ever get to know a girl
in a place so far away?" I asked my classmate.
Allen explained he had been given her name
and address by one of our teachers who had been
helping the students of our school in Hallsville,
N.H., to establish pen-pal relationships with the
'"Soys and girls of other lands.
"Do you think I could get a pen pal, Allen?" I
asked with curiosity.
"Well, Kiyuko has a younger sister. Maybe you
could start writing to her," he suggested.
I pounced on the idea, and before long my first
letter to Kiyoko Tanaka was on its way to Japan.
Kiyoko was 11 years old my own age at the time.
I was sure this would give us much to write about.
I counted the days, awaiting Kiyoko's reply.
'When it came I was almost overcome with excite
ment. Imagine, a letter for me all the way from
the other side of the world!
In Japan, children are not taught English until
they reach what would be comparable to our sixth
grade. Kiyoko, therefore, had studied our language
for only a year. She had difficulty expressing her
self in English, and her letter was not easy to read.
But it didn't matter. I read it a dozen times, and
its simplicity became more beautiful each time.
Almost immediately I wrote again to Kiyoko.
This was the beginning of one of the most un
usual friendships any two young girls have ever
experienced anywhere.
Our letters were exchanged about once a month
sometimes more often. They were typical teen
age letters, I guess. We wrote about our schools,
homework, parents, hobbies, customs, boy friends,
recreation, relatives, and the like. We swapped
pictures of each other, our families, and local sur
roundings. And often we'd exchange small gifts.
This presented a problem. In shopping for a pres
ent for Kiyoko, I'd hunt for something inexpensive
but typically American. But just when I'd find the
Corol's pen pal Kiyoko gets a taste of American
hospitality rom civic leaders in Manchester, N. H.
perfect item, I'd turn it upside down and find it
stamped, "Made in Japan."
I thought it would be fun to send Kiyoko some
samples of the kind of clothes teen-agers in
America wear, and in one of my letters I asked
her to forward her clothing sizes. She complied
but utter confusion resulted. The method of meas
uring sizes in Japan differs from ours. To solve
this, I sent along some string in my next letter
and asked Kiyoko to measure off the width of her
waist, length of her arms, eto. It worked out per
fectly, and I was able to send her a skirt and
blouse that were her size.
Before long, Kiyoko's wonderful letters bright
ened my whole routine. I was never at a loss for
conversation among my friends or at home, never
stumped for a topic for a school composition. And
it amazed me that two teen-age girls, living more
than 7,000 miles apart in surroundings so vastly
different, could think alike on so many matters.
i ,
IN 1955, after almost two years of corresponding,
Kiyoko and I cooked up the most fantastic plan.
We decided to exchange visits to each other's coun
try. It was like a pipe dream in the beginning, but
when we mentioned it to our parents the response
amazed us.
My mother thought it was a wonderful idea
especially since I indicated that I planned to earn
all the money necessary to get me to Tokyo and
back to our home in Londonderry, N.H.
"It will teach you the value of money," Mom
said. "Also, it will give you the chance to choose
between spending your money on the pleasures
that pass quickly or saving it for the experience
of a lifetime."
Encouraged by this, I began to make meticu
lous plans. I figured the cost of such a trip cut
ting corners wherever possible would be around
$2,000. Jeepers, I thought at the time, that sounds
almost as much as $2 million! But at least I had
time almost five years, since I promised my par
ents I would not begin my journey until I had
been graduated from high school.
In the days that followed, my saving habits
would have put the squirrel to shame. I became
the busiest baby sitter in Londonderry. I was sel
dom without a new scheme for earning additional
money for chores around the house. I seldom spent
a cent on clothing and was content to make do
with the clothes I'd receive from my parents as
gifts. I cut out the movies and swore off candy and
sodas. As I grew older, I was permitted to work
after school in my father's restaurant. Eventually,
I increased this schedule to some evenings during
the week, weekends, and holidays. My bank ac
count began to swell rapidly. I gave up vacation
time in the summers of 1958 and '59 to work as
a full-time waitress at a resort at Hampton Beach
where the tips were extremely good. My net o
profit from this project amounted to $900 and
pushed me very close to my goal.
I kept Kiyoko advised on the progress of my
program, and she seemed to be envious of my de
- termined, if exhausting, effort In Japan, young
ladies simply cannot earn money this easily . "Jobs
are difficult to find, and they pay very little. Hows
ever, Kiyoko's father, a well-to-do executive of
a Tokyo jewelry manufacturing company, had
promised to underwrite her trip to America when
the time arrived.
Last summer, after I was graduated from Cen
tral High School in Manchester, N.H., I was ready
to pack. My nest egg had reached $2,000 the week
before, and my itinerary and plane reservations
had been completed. But now a big problem de
, veloped. The political riots in Tokyo brought warn
ings to my parents from friends and neighbors.
"It's foolish to let a young girl go there by her
self with all that trouble going on," they advised.
I held my breath waiting for a ueaction from9
Mom and Dad.
"Well, if the situation really was dangerous, I'm
M
Family Weekly, January 1, 1961