JAPANESE SPECIAL
Royalty
An everyday story of imperial folk
Jurek Martin
How it all came about, with the tennis following the dancing, is, in its own tiny way, almost instructive about the state of the imperial family in contemporary Japan. For, until Hirohito was laid low, and the rhythms of Japanese daily life were inter- rupted by death watches, only the most ardent nationalist or abolitionist — of whom, mercifully, there are only a raucous few — seemed conscious of the family's existence,
This ought not to be surprising. In several important respects, Japan has be- come since the war a society which is more egalitarian than most, courtesy first of General Douglas MacArthur and secondly of Japanese policy makers. The US occupation brought in universal suffrage and education and land reform, which effectively put paid to the aristocracy, while subsequent national governments went out of their way to promote the even distribution of national income, It is point- less to deny that women and minorities, such as Koreans, are still discriminated against ox that now a parvenu class, based on acquired wealth, is emerging. Neverthe- less, Horatio Alger, if not his wife or daughter, could still make it in Japan and that is still pretty much a national preoc- cupation.
What has not changed, and what, perhaps will never change, is the extent to which the country runs on wheels within wheels. There is not a grand conspiracy here, regardless of what some authors would have us believe. On the contrary, there is a lot of competition, But there are `connections', indispensible to the advancement of politicians, businessmen, kabuki actors and shopkeepers. These may be based on birthplace, university, neigh- bourhood, even lefthandedness.
Now, it might be supposed that with Hirohito `degodded', as the GIs put it, in January 1946 — and subsequently assum- ing a positively self-effacing role as a constitutional monarch that the imperial connections, at least to the world outside the palace, had dried up. It could be argued that they never were very great anyway and that Japanese emperors have, over 2,400 years, mostly reigned but rarely ruled, the instruments of others, not mas- ters in their own house.
Hirohito himself was taught, as a youth, not to interfere in the affairs of state and, whatever some dark theorists claim to the contrary and whatever the behaviour and inclinations of other members of the impe- rial family, the balance of evidence is that he did so only twice, once in 1936 to help abort a coup and again in 1945, to bring the war to an end.
Imperial lives were certainly closeted and everything that is known about Hirohi- to's personal inclinations suggests no desire on his part voluntarily to leave the cage. His grand Eurotour of the early 1920s seemed enough to last a lifetime; subse- quent excursions were much more in the line of duty.
The picture thus emerges of an essential- ly withdrawn Emperor, doing what was necessary by way of ceremony, getting his briefings on policy from bureaucrats, ex- pressing interest but never expressing his own feelings, His eldest son, Akihito, is the fifth of six children, born after four sisters, a sufficiently worrying event for the court of the 1930s to suggest discreetly that a concubine to ensure the male succession might need to be ordered up. Though Akihito's marriage in 1959 to a commoner, Michiko Shoda, daughter of a wealthy flour miller, was revolutionary by imperial standards, the Crown Prince seemed moulded in his father's image, and, to the Japanese public, almost as remote. He rode an underground train — but not with ordinary passengers on broad.
But the connections, it turns out, were still there, to the point that they had an impact on social and sporting life. It happend this way, Three years ago, the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan celebrated its 40th anniversary; for reasons probably only apparent to the Japanese, who have problems understanding foreign journalists, the club actually enjoys some status in Tokyo. Thus it was deemed not to constitute lese-majesty that we should in- vite the Crown Prince and Princess to attend the great ball, though in the sure expectation that they would not come.
Nor, I think, would they have done so but for a phone call made by one of the imperial chamberlains assigned to reply to the invitation. The chamberlain, who hap- pened to be a classmate of Akihito's, thought he might just as well talk to another graduate of the Peer's School, the place where sons of the aristocracy were educated, who just happened to be the man at the Foreign Ministry in charge of press relations, which included dealing with foreign correspondents. He probably just wanted to confirm that this was an invitation that ought to be graciously de- clined, but the man at the ministry, a genuinely urbane gentleman, replied along the lines of 'hold on a minute old son, wouldn't it be a good idea to have Them doing a bit of mingling in respectable international society, and anyway I know the president of the Club (me) and he's all right most of the time'.
So they came, stayed, ate, danced, talked, in very good English and displayed, on Both parts but especially Hers, a catholic interest in the affairs of the world. It was, I suppose, though I have no previous experience of such occasions, your perfectly Normal Evening with Royalty. So, not so long afterwards, was the tennis, on one of Their occasional visits to the club of which we were both mem- bers. I learned then that a clean ace also does not constitute lese-majesty and that compensating double faults, while ende- mic, aren't obligatory either.
It is a far cry from this exposure, however, to suggest that Akihito and Michiko are already the Charles and Di of Japan, or will reign like Ferdinand and Isabella. It is not their conditioning, nor is it their country's. The Japanese popular press does get excited over who the next- in-line, Prince Hiro, their part Oxford- educated eldest son, will marry, but, according to its lights, in a desperately quaint and restrained way. The level of interest in the imperial family will go up as the protracted rites of transition from Hirohito to Akihito are played out, but mostly because Japan has seen nothing like it for over 60 years. Maybe this will cause a bit of political thought about the role of monarchy, too, but probably it will be no more than a passing interest. Nor should it be; the country does not need it and They are far too nice to be subject to it.
Jurek Martin is Foreign Editor of the Finan- cial Times.
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