Word: naruhito
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Crown Prince Naruhito (with his wife Masako) is heir to a clan that claimed divinity until Japan's defeat in World War II. Imperial brides till then had come from the nobility. But the Prince's mother, the Empress Michiko, is a commoner, as is Masako...
...company at the time but later, as the firm's president, was involved with the settlement of lawsuits. Second, Owada did not seem that interested in an imperial future. Furthermore, she may have had a boyfriend or two. And then there was the press, which caught on to Naruhito's interest almost at once. The Owadas were besieged. Masako-san was tough with reporters, often demanding their business cards, and even slamming her hand against photographers' lenses. As celebrities before her have learned, retaliatory action doesn't do much good. By the time she flew off to Oxford...
...October 1986 she met her fate at a reception given for Spain's Princess Elena in Tokyo. It was a typical ceremonial trade-off: young women were invited to amuse the pretty Spanish royal and also to be reviewed by the bachelor crown prince. Naruhito liked Masako-san at once. Shigemitsu Dando, a former Supreme Court justice and longtime adviser to the imperial household, confided to his diary that "she was very graceful but also cheery and ! outgoing." Four meetings were arranged, and the imperial watchdogs began a routine background check over three generations...
...happened, her future husband had just finished two years at the same university. For Naruhito, who speaks English almost as fluently, Oxford was a liberation. Though he did have minimal security protection, he was for the first time in his young life on his own. A wine fancier, he could walk into a liquor store and pick his own bottles. He could go to the laundry and make a fool of himself by letting suds flood the floor. When the winter turned harsh, he could tape his own windows or suffer the consequences. He made good use of his experience...
...course, the imperial household knows a thing or two about negotiating also. Somehow, mandatory security was brushed aside so the pair could meet privately, if not alone. Naruhito would propose, his quarry would demur. Volleys of phone calls from the lover followed. There were rendezvous on the imperial duck-hunting grounds. All the while, secrecy was an obsession. But one short exchange shows that the young pair were establishing intimacy and rapport. After some nervous discussion about avoiding the press, Masako- san joked to Naruhito, "Perhaps I should get dressed up in a panda suit." Some panda...