JAPAN: The Falling Curtain

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Silk & Sake. Just as a "lucky day" was chosen for the engagement, so another "lucky day" will have to be chosen for the marriage. In the meantime, the Emperor and Empress will exchange gifts with the Shodas—a sea bream, the fish of good fortune, as well as sake and silk. Akihito will present his future wife with a jeweled sword to protect her chastity, and the Emperor will bestow on her the Grand Cordon of the Imperial Order of the Sacred Crown, the highest decoration given a woman in Japan. Finally, the young couple will exchange love poems, written on pink paper and enclosed in boxes made of willow.

But for all the ritual, Akihito's betrothal was hailed in Japan as the imperial family's greatest leap toward democracy since Hirohito threw off the myth of imperial divinity in 1946. Not only was the engagement "a triumph of youth and love." said Foreign Minister Aiichiro Fujiyama, it had "shattered court conventions." "The prince," said the Japan Times, "has set a seal on the democratization of Japan." For Akihito. who has long rebelled against living behind a "chrysanthemum curtain," there will be other seals to set. When he was only three, he was, as tradition decreed, taken away from his parents and sent to live in a palace of his own. In the two-story palace now abuilding for him and his princess, at a cost of $650,000, there will be bedrooms for the children he expects to have. At least three.