Word: crowning
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Years ago Mrs. Elizabeth Gray Vining, the American Quaker who tutored Akihito during his childhood, said to Dr. Koizumi: "She who marries the crown prince must be a girl of spirit who will not be a doormat; she must not be someone who will be easily overwhelmed." Michiko Shoda, standing straight and slim beside her devoted prince, seems precisely that girl...
...their emancipation, so has she to some extent become a symbol of the hated modern world to Japanese traditionalists-mostly men over 30. Some of the kazoku (noble) families make no secret of their chagrin that their own blue-blooded daughters were passed over as a bride for the crown prince. A court lady angrily describes Michiko Shoda as "that little upstart." Recently, as a guest at an exclusive dinner party, Michiko's millionaire industrialist father sat in embarrassed silence while kazoku guests addressed each other loudly over his head, complaining at the way things were going, and blaming...
...Shodas could aim high for their daughter, since by 1955 the family Nisshin Flour Milling Co. was the largest in Asia, with current sales totaling $93 million a year. Michiko joked with an uncle: "If Crown Prince Akihito were only a little taller, I might fall in love with him." Michiko (5 ft. 3½ in.) had several times seen the crown prince (5 ft. 5 in.), who also vacationed at Karuizawa...
Inside the Cocoon. What sort of an individual is the crown prince? Dr. Koizumi has supplied a remarkably candid summing up: "He is by no means an exceptional young man. But he will do. He is sincere, takes his responsibilities seriously, and he is a good thinker even if the process is sometimes painful. He is the product of his upbringing. Like other members of the imperial family, he has lived a cocoonlike existence, with little knowledge of people and events in the outside world. He has too many servants but he lives simply. His great handicap is that...
...Koizumi was distantly acquainted with Michiko Shoda before she met the crown prince, and subsequent investigation, he said, "showed her to be far better than anyone." In fact, her name had been included on the first, very large list of prospective brides that had been drawn up by the imperial household, but it had been excluded-with all other commoners-from the small, final list. But there was no longer doubt where the prince's inclinations...