A Fairy-Tale Ending

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Monday, November 26, 2001

Inside Togu Palace in central Tokyo, royal handlers are busily and secretly preparing for an event that will breathe new life into Japan's cloistered royal family. Crown Princess Masako is expected to give birth to her first child this week or next, ending an eight year wait that frustrated a nation impatient for a royal heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne, which in mythological terms, anyway, is said to date back more than 2,600 years. With that kind of history it's no surprise that planning for this baby is a bit more complicated than stocking up on diapers.

A team of six doctors is attending the pregnant Masako. A master swordsmith is crafting a 30-cm blade that Emperor Akihito will present to the baby. A tub made out of fresh cypress wood, for the baby's first bath, is being built. Buddhist priests have delivered a paper amulet. Literature professors have been tasked to scour ancient texts in search of a name.

	Should the law be changed to allow a Japanese Empress? Yes No Not sure

The only real mystery about this birth is whether that name should be a boy's or a girl's. The people who presumably know aren't saying. Nearly everyone in Japan thinks they know the answer to this imperial puzzle, however, assembling vague clues and reading them like tea leaves. Exhibit A: Masako's face. "It hasn't changed so much, and in Japan, that means she's having a boy," says Harumi Kobayashi, a princess groupie who is publishing a book of Masako photographs next month. Exhibit B: Ceremonial planning. There is one gender-specific ritual, held only for girls, which involves a special kimono. But there is no evidence anyone is sewing the garment. Exhibit C: Politics. When Masako's pregnancy was announced, politicians began debating whether imperial laws should be changed to allow a female emperor. But such talk has been muted since the summer, around the time the princess presumably had a sex-revealing sonogram. Put the pieces together and . . . "It's almost certainly a boy," says Toshiaki Kawahara, a journalist covering the royal family for four decades. Neither Masako's husband, Crown Prince Naruhito, nor his younger brother Prince Aya, have produced a son, leaving the hereditary line in jeopardy.

There's been much consternation over the 37-year-old Masako's reproductive problems. In 1999, she suffered a miscarriage, which has had a chilling effect on press coverage of this pregnancy. "Nobody wants to be blamed if Masako has any more problems," said Toshiya Matsuzaki, another longtime royal family journalist. Despite the Imperial Household Agency's best efforts to play down the upcoming birth, the public's anticipation and excitement is beginning to emerge. There's a pregnant doll on the market. Its makers insist its arrival in stores this month has nothing to do with Masako's pregnancy, but everybody else in Japan is connecting the dots. There are cakes and cookies and baby bento boxes commemorating the birth, and television chat shows are filled with speculation about the event.

The birth of a son would solve the succession issue. But a daughter would create palace intrigue, and would give Naruhito and Masako an opportunity to put their imprint on the imperial institution by insisting that their daughter be treated as a boy would. The monarchy uses these milestones to send symbolic messages, as the popular Empress Michiko did when she gave birth to Naruhito in 1960. Photographed in aprons, standing amid pots and pans in a kitchen, Michiko was presented to the public as the epitome of the modern post-war housewife. She insisted Naru-chan, as the boy prince was affectionately called, be raised in their household and not shuffled off to the care of chamberlains in a separate palace. (Later, Akihito did away with the daily imperial stool analyses. That's reform!) It was all part of a deliberate campaign to make the royals appear more normal, less god-like. Naruhito continued the process of modernization by studying at Oxford, the first royal to be educated outside Japan, and then selecting and wooing, to be his bride, a strong-willed woman with a brain (she admitted reading anti-imperialist writer Kenzaburo Oe). "This was intensely fascinating, the process of bringing the monarchy down from the clouds," says Ken Ruoff, an American scholar of Japanese history whose book, "The People's Emperor," was published this month in the U.S. What can Masako, a Harvard- educated, career diplomat before her royal wedding, do to inject more modernity into the palace? "We could see a picture of Naruhito changing a diaper," suggested Ruoff. "That would send a message about changing gender roles."

Ever since Hirohito was stripped of his divinity after World War II, the emperor has in a sense been searching for a job. His descendants are trotted out for ceremonies. They lend their support to charities, but they shy away from anything remotely related to politics, although contrary to conventional thinking in Japan, the emperor is regularly briefed by government ministers. Naruhito and Masako opened an AIDS conference in Yokohama in 1994, and Akihito and Michiko soothed earthquake victims in Kobe in 1995, but even those tepid public overtures were somewhat controversial. Says taxi driver Koji Ono: "They're just decoration, like whipped cream on a cake."

That's the dilemma for the denizens of Togu Palace. How to make the royals relevant while at the same time avoiding criticism that they are treading on political ground where they don't belong? Outside the palace gates recently, retired shopkeeper Takashige Kondo, 71, lamented, "We've waited a long time for this good news to happen, so we are excited. But we don't know what's going to happen to the royal family. Will they even be around 100 years from now?" The future prince or princess doesn't know it, but the sword-bestowing ceremony and first royal bath are just the start of what will be a complicated life, trying to somehow mesh archaic traditions with a modern world.

ANCIENT RITUALS
Japan's Crown Princess Masako is due to give birth this week or next. If it is a boy, he will be second in line to the Chrysanthemum Throne after his father, Crown Prince Naruhito. If it is a girl, the law of succession might be changed, paving the way for Japan to have its first female monarch since ancient times. In a time-honored tradition, ancient rituals will take place after the birth:

Day of the birth: The infant's grandfather, Emperor Akihito, will bestow a Japanese sword on the newborn in a ceremony known as "shiken-no-gi." The sword will be placed at the baby's bedside in hospital to protect him/her.

Day 7: A lady-in-waiting bathes the baby -- in a ceremony called "yokuto-no-gi" -- in a wooden basin while a Tokyo university professor recites a passage from the Japanese classic Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan), in a bid to instil excellence in the infant. Two male Palace staff will also pluck the string of a bow twice; this is to pray for the good health of the baby.

On the same day, the naming ceremony, known as "meimei-no-gi," will take place. Boys are given the title of 'shinno' (Imperial prince) and girls 'nai-shinno' (Imperial princess). Three professors of Japanese literature at the University of Tokyo were chosen to suggest three names from Chinese or Japanese classics. The Emperor will then decide the name and the baby's "oshirushi," or signature mark). The ceremony will take place at Togu Palace where Crown Prince and Crown Princess live.

Day 50: The baby, carried by a lady-in-waiting, will visit the three shrines in the Imperial Palace in a ceremony called "kyuchu sanden."