eyes named Alice who had been donated to Jinryo Elementary School in Kamiyama. It survived to future generations thanks to a female teacher who, believing the doll to be innocent, hid it from the eyes of the military police. The doll was discovered when Jinryo Elementary moved into a new building around 1990. It had been stored in a handsome wooden box together with a passport and a postcard that bore the name and address of the sender. Some members of the school’s PTA felt that if they could locate the sender and return the doll to its home it might lead to international exchange that would help revitalize the town in some way. So they began to work on it. Bringing in some former members, the PTAformed a Committee to Return Alice Home with about 30 members including children. They were successful in returning the doll to the original sender’s relatives in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, and this taste of success gave the group momentum to work with other local people to bring some life to Kamiyama. At the center of this group was ŌMINAMI Shinya, who had completed graduate study at Stanford University after graduating from a university in Tokyo, and had returned home to Kamiyama to take up the operation of his family’s construction company. He had been wanting to create opportunities for international exchange for Kamiyama’s children at the time Alice was discovered and as the vice-president of the PTA he ended up leading the campaign to return her home. Other participants in