Totto-chan's Children : A Goodwill Journey to the Children of the World by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, translated by Dorothy Britton (Kodansha International)

Tetsuko Kuroyanagi is a Japanese actress, a popular television talk-show host, and is the author of the acclaimed book Totto-chan : The Little Girl at the Window (reviewed on December 14, 2019). In February of 1984, she was appointed Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund), currently known as United Nations Children’s Fund whose main purpose is to provide humanitarian and developmental aid to children all over the world. She held the position until 1996. 

Totto-chan’s Children is the story of her travels to countries in Africa, Asia, and other nations to visit the people who are most at risk from malnutrition, disease, and conflicts - the children. Originally published in 1997 by Kodansha as トットちゃんとトットちゃんたち (Totto-chan to Totto-chan Tachi). The title is a play on words. Totto-chan was what Kuroyanagi called herself when she was a child. Totto is also the word for “child” in Swahili, one of the official languages of Tanzania which was the first country Kuroyanagi would visit as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF. 

Kuroyanagi’s visited Tanzania in 1984. The country was suffering from a severe drought. It hadn’t rained since 1981 and because there was no rain, no crops could be grown. “Everyday, nearly six hundred children under the age of five were dying of starvation and disease”. 

Kuroyanagi thought she knew a lot about starving children being a child growing up in wartime Japan. Her visit to Tanzania opened her eyes to what real starvation is. She met children who could neither stand, nor walk or talk. However, none of the children she met shed any tears or said anything. Later in the evening she was told by a village chief who told her, “Adults die groaning, complaining of their pain, but children say nothing. They simply die silently, under the banana leaves, trusting us adults”. 

Her travels to Asia would take her to Cambodia and Vietnam in 1988 where she would see the children who suffered at the hands of the Khmer Rouge and the Pol Pot regime. Children whose parents were killed, malnourished children because there was no powdered milk or anything nourishing for the kids to eat. Many of the nurses themselves were orphans and did not know how to take care of babies.

In Vietnam, she visited a night elementary school. She was told there about a million school-age children in Ho Chi Minh City. Of these, “about sixty thousand either bravely went to work each day to contribute to the household economy, looked after their younger siblings or helped with the housework and, therefore, could not attend elementary school in the daytime. The night elementary schools were for their benefit”. 

An elementary night school for children. Americans would be hard-pressed to understand a need for such a facility. It may not seem as strange to the Japanese, where many elementary school students attend night classes at cram schools after their regular school. 

In 1990, Kuroyanagi visited Bangladesh, known at the time of this writing, to be one of the poorest nations in the world. In this country about nine hundred thousand children under the age of five die each year. She visited the country after it suffered a severe flood wiping out nearly one-third of the nation. Many of the children were afflicted with diarrhea or diarrhea-related diseases. However, what really surprised Kuroyanagi were the children. She says, “There was not a child who had become lethargic and spiritless. They bubbled with the will to live”. 

Kuroyanagi also visited Iraq in 1991 shortly after the end of the Persian Gulf War. In this conflict which most of us have seen on television, we have not seen the real tragedy of war because the ones are most affected are the innocent children and news programs usually don’t focus on the aspect of the conflict.

Every country Kuroyanagi visits is inundated with children in need. Fortunately, UNICEF continues to do what it was intended to do, that is to help children in need all around the world. It’s a sad state of affairs that throughout the world, war, conflict, disease, famine, and starvation continues. We are often left to think, “How can I be of more help?”, “Is the more I can do?”

The book does provide a reference for those wishing to contribute to UNICEF through Tetsuko Kurayanagi’s goodwill ambassador account in Tokyo. ~Ernie Hoyt