I think the Imperial Family lives a more normal life these days-- even during Akihito's childhood, things were changing; his father Hirohito hadn't been happy with a lot of the old ways and did things like abolish the concubine system the year he got married (which according to some people has been one of the reasons they've been having some trouble getting male heirs in recent generations; the Meiji and Taisho emperors had both been the sons of concubines because the inbred aristocratic empresses were only having daughters, but otoh Akihito and Crown Prince Naruhito are both married to commoners so that can't be all of it).
Akihito may also have been the first Imperial heir for a long time to be fluent in normal conversational Japanese, thanks to his school attendance. The bio of him and his bride (written shortly after their marriage, although someone pasted a baby picture of Naruhito in the back, from an old newspaper) mentioned that when Hirohito made his radio announcement of the surrender to the Allies, most of his subjects could barely understand him because the entire Imperial Court was practically an alien realm of elaborate, archaic rituals; the way he spoke was probably the equivalent of English from the King James Bible.
There's another bio of Akihito's younger days floating around somewhere (it's been at my favorite used-bookstore for a while, though I haven't checked recently whether it's still there), written by Elizabeth Lee Vining, an Englishwoman who was his tutor from ~1946-1950. There's a page on her here (http://www2.gol.com/users/quakers/vining_obituary.htm) that mentions, "It was Vining's influence that led to the decision of the Emperor and Empress to raise their children by themselves, breaking with Imperial tradition and placing emphasis on respect toward others, regardless of family status."
Gotta wonder how Hiko would react to meeting the relatively smartmouthed Kenji, considering how quiet and well-behaved Shinta had been when they first met. (Also, Anji may've taken in orphans at his temple, but presumably no one offered to do the same for Shinta instead of just cashing him in to the group of slave-traders. Ka-ching!)
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2007-08-29 01:06 am (UTC)Akihito may also have been the first Imperial heir for a long time to be fluent in normal conversational Japanese, thanks to his school attendance. The bio of him and his bride (written shortly after their marriage, although someone pasted a baby picture of Naruhito in the back, from an old newspaper) mentioned that when Hirohito made his radio announcement of the surrender to the Allies, most of his subjects could barely understand him because the entire Imperial Court was practically an alien realm of elaborate, archaic rituals; the way he spoke was probably the equivalent of English from the King James Bible.
There's another bio of Akihito's younger days floating around somewhere (it's been at my favorite used-bookstore for a while, though I haven't checked recently whether it's still there), written by Elizabeth Lee Vining, an Englishwoman who was his tutor from ~1946-1950. There's a page on her here (http://www2.gol.com/users/quakers/vining_obituary.htm) that mentions, "It was Vining's influence that led to the decision of the Emperor and Empress to raise their children by themselves, breaking with Imperial tradition and placing emphasis on respect toward others, regardless of family status."
Gotta wonder how Hiko would react to meeting the relatively smartmouthed Kenji, considering how quiet and well-behaved Shinta had been when they first met. (Also, Anji may've taken in orphans at his temple, but presumably no one offered to do the same for Shinta instead of just cashing him in to the group of slave-traders. Ka-ching!)