Word: showa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Japan, once the world's enemy, now its envy. A ruler once a god, in fact a slight, shy man fond of jellyfish but devoted to imperial duty. The interment of Emperor Showa, called Hirohito in his lifetime, bringing together admirers of Japan's modern ascent with the rites of a hallowed but controversial past. The burial too of an era that will lay to rest a history of barbaric militarism and shattering defeat, freeing Japan to move into a new age of unapologetic economic supremacy. All in all, it was as haunting and impressive a funeral as the century...
...tranquillity. As Japan's national television network flashed the words TENNO- HEIKA HOGYO (the Emperor passes away) last Saturday, some of the country's 122 million citizens wept, some prayed, some affected disinterest. All realized that an era of great change for their country, a period immortalized as the Showa era, or time of enlightened peace...
...present government, meanwhile, was wrestling with some rare but pressing decisions. Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, for example, must choose a name for the next imperial era. All official documents except passports are now dated by the era Showa (Enlightened Peace), which began the day Hirohito became Emperor in 1926. Although some critics call the convention a remnant of the dead imperial past, they don't wish to end it, only transfer to the people responsibility for choosing the new name...