Word: owada
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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There were problems with Owada. Her grandfather was linked to Chisso, the firm responsible for major chemical dumping first detected in the '50s that led to the death or crippling of thousands. He was not connected to the 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...
...Tokyo to study for the Foreign Ministry entrance exam. The stocky teenager was becoming sleek and turning heads in a division that is only about 5% female. She passed the stiff exam after just one year -- most people require two years of study, and only 5.3% succeeded in 1986, Owada's year. Even now, Tokyo professionals can be heard to say, "She did what a man can't do," and then hurriedly correct themselves...
Masako could be cheeky. In high school English class, the students would try to disrupt a lesson by asking the teacher endless questions. Before the start of the session, Owada and her best friend to this day, Sumiyo Tsuchikawa, the two most fluent English speakers in the group, would go to the blackboard and write down teasers like "Did you go out with anyone during college?" The rest of the class shouted out questions in Japanese for the pair to translate in chalk...
...Lillian Katz, says Masako "never needed moral support. She knew her own worth, and she knew that she was her parents' pride and joy." Belmont has reason to remember its former high-schooler. Since the engagement, Japanese tourists arrive by the busload to ogle her alma mater and the Owada house...
When the elder Owada's two-year teaching stint was over, his daughter remained in the U.S. and went to Harvard, graduating magna cum laude in economics. Her thesis adviser was Jeffrey Sachs, who went on to advise countries around the world on how to switch from controlled to free-market economies. "She had a certain extra dimension, a real analytical mind," he observes. "Her thesis concerned Japan's trade performance after each shock in oil prices during the '70s and '80s, and how the country paid for fuel by increasing exports. She devised computer work that was sophisticated, especially...