Word: michiko
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...meeting took place on an August day in 1957. Michiko, then 22, had grown into a young woman who moved with fluid grace, spoke in the soft, cultured tones of a Sacred Heart graduate, had quick, attentive eyes and a slow, demure smile. She radiated a maidenly appeal rather than sexiness, and there was the fascinating impression of a number of locked doors lying behind her reserved manner...
...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...
...rumors spread through the capital, Michiko Shoda suddenly left Japan, on her first trip abroad, visited Europe and the U.S., where she heard Pianist Van Cliburn play his first concert in Carnegie Hall. There were letters along the way from the prince, and, troubled, Michiko wrote her parents: "I don't believe commoners should be united with the imperial family. I doubt if such a step would have good results." To the prince she wrote: "I hope you will let me be a close friend of yours for a long, long time...
...returned to Japan last October, just after her 24th birthday. Akihito deluged her with impassioned letters, telephoned daily. On Nov. 3, on the telephone, Michiko Shoda told the crown prince that she would marry him, if he really wished it. The Director of the Imperial Household Board was dispatched to the Shoda house formally to request Michiko's hand for Akihito. The news was joyfully received by most of the press and public. Editorials took the opportunity to chide some palace officials for cloistering the imperial family, for having tended in recent years to lower a "chrysanthemum curtain" between...
Some Changes Made. Michiko-san makes an inspiring example of the ability of a Japanese woman to move from the ranks of the common people to the dizzying heights of the imperial throne. But it is a deceptive example. Ever since the peerage was abolished, wealthy industrialist families like the Shodas have become the new peers of Japan, and their daughters are princesses of the realm in everything but the name...