TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/011689/01168900.033

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 8.5 KB | 161 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 30

JAPAN

The Longest Reign


With Hirohito's death, an economic giant begins a new era


    The call came before 5 a.m., summoning the chief court
physician to the bedside of the ailing monarch. Since September,
when the aging Emperor was first stricken with internal
hemorrhaging, he had remained in a second-floor bedroom of his
residence within the walled, moated and heavily wooded grounds
of the Imperial Palace. A victim of duodenal cancer, he grew
weaker each day. Dr. Akira Takagi rushed into the palace within
minutes of the summons, followed closely by Crown Prince Akihito
and his wife Crown Princess Michiko, then by Prime Minister
Noboru Takeshita. At 6:33 a.m. Emperor Hirohito, once worshiped
by the Japanese people as a living god, died at the age of 87.

    The longest-reigning monarch on earth, Hirohito was the last
survivor of the leaders of the World War II era. He occupied the
Chrysanthemum Throne longer than any of his recorded
predecessors. During his 62 years as Emperor, Hirohito presided
over a nation that soared to heights of military arrogance,
plummeted catastrophically and rose again to become a formidable
industrial power. Through it all, the slight, stooped Hirohito
retained an unassuming 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, was at an end.

    Though the vigil for the Emperor lasted more than three
months, the Japanese were not officially informed that Hirohito
suffered from cancer until after he died. Within moments of the
death announcement, mourners converged on the Imperial Palace in
Tokyo. "Since he fell ill, I've been praying every day for his
recovery," said office clerk Yuko Kitagawa, 32, tears streaming
down her cheeks. "I'm just sad." The National Police Agency
mobilized 15,000 police to patrol the Imperial and Togu palaces.
Many flags flew at half-staff; others were adorned with black
ribbons. Japan's stock and bond markets, regularly open on
Saturday, were closed. Government offices were observing a
six-day mourning period, and workers were requested to refrain
from festive singing or dancing. Even a major sumo-wrestling
tournament was postponed a day.

    In a silent four-minute ceremony that took place less than
four hours after his father's death, Akihito, 55, received the
imperial and state seals and replicas of two of the imperial
treasures that symbolize the throne. By legend, the actual
treasures -- a mirror, a sword and a crescent-shaped jewel --
trace back to the Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu. The government
chose a name for Emperor Akihito's reign: Heisei, the
achievement of complete peace on earth and in the heavens.

    To many Westerners, the idea of the Japanese monarchy seems a
paradox in a country that has become the cynosure of the modern
industrial world. Yet the institution, the oldest of its kind
on the globe, lies at the center of Japan's national psyche,
characterizing both the country's flexibility and its resistance
to the shock of the new. As Akihito succeeds his father, the
institution and the nation are at another beginning.

    In many ways, Hirohito perfectly reflected his country's
fascination with the West. When Hirohito embarked on a six-month
tour of Europe in 1921, he became the first member of the
Japanese royal family to set foot outside his homeland. For the
rest of his life, the Emperor treasured the Paris subway ticket
that was his first purchase and a reminder of his first glimpse
of freedom. He also took home a taste for Western food and
clothes that he never lost. In 1975, 54 years after he expressed
a determination to visit the U.S., Hirohito finally realized his
dream. During his 15-day tour, he attended a football game, met
John Wayne and visited Disneyland. For years thereafter, a
Mickey Mouse watch could be seen on the imperial wrist.

    From the beginning, the Emperor commanded more respect as a
symbol than as a personality. Installed as Crown Prince at 15,
he ascended to the Chrysanthemum Throne in 1926 as the 124th
Living God in a dynastic line stretching back more than 26
centuries. Children were told they would be blinded if they saw
Hirohito's face; the very mention of his name was taboo. Yet
Hirohito was well aware that he was to be as much pawn as
ruler. Even as his advisers refrained from looking at him, they
also refused to listen to him. His divine authority was not
enough to suppress the military officers who began taking
control of the country in the 1930s.

    Hirohito's reticence made it difficult to determine whether
he was guilty of complicity in, or mere compliance with, the
expansionism that characterized Japan during his first two
decades as Emperor. Ultimately 2.3 million Japanese soldiers
and 800,000 civilians died in World War II. But most of the
evidence suggests that Hirohito was at heart a peace-loving man.
At a Cabinet meeting in 1941, when his ministers agitated for
the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Emperor surprised them all by
suddenly reciting a poem composed by his grandfather, the
Emperor Meiji: "In a world/ Where all the seas/ Are brethren/
Why then do wind and wave/ So stridently clash?" With that, he
fell silent.

    Silence, however, finally proved untenable. In 1945, with
Tokyo aflame, Hiroshima and Nagasaki reduced to rubble, and
military officers still eager to fight, the Emperor insisted on
announcing his country's surrender. As he spoke, he publicly
betrayed emotion for almost the only time in his life: his
voice broke.

    Later that month the poker-faced monarch humbly presented
himself before a moved and astonished General Douglas MacArthur
to accept full responsibility for all his country's martial
transgressions. In 1946 Hirohito renounced the "false conception
that the Emperor is divine." Commoners were no longer forbidden
to look at his face. The state confiscated most of his $250
million fortune.

    The shedding of divine status came naturally, perhaps, to a
man who had never seemed at home amid the panoply of godhood.
Instead of the ornate Imperial Palace, Hirohito chose to live in
a nondescript two-story Western-style house deep inside the
palace grounds. Rather than hold court in resplendent formal
dress, he preferred to putter around in battered Panama hat and
short-sleeved shirt. More than formal dinners, he relished
quiet nights at home with Empress Nagako, now 85, a cheerful
wife with whom he had two sons and five daughters.

    Hirohito's greatest pleasure was the study of marine
biology, which he enthusiastically conducted in a laboratory
built for him on his palace grounds. It was far more than a
hobby: he published several books on the subject, and was a
leading authority on jellyfish (medusae). The Emperor also kept
himself busy by observing the ceremonial duties demanded of him
by the postwar constitution. Despite his fondness for privacy,
he diligently opened the Diet (parliament), welcomed foreign
envoys and brushstroked his signature on about 1,200 state
papers a year. The Emperor even bravely made the rounds of
factories, though his shyness was so intense that he almost
never ventured any comment except "A so desu ka? (Is that so?)"
Once, it is said, he was ushered into a receiving room to greet a
visiting dignitary. The door was opened to reveal an empty hall.
The Emperor peered into the chamber, bowed and turned to his
aides: "Most interesting and pleasant. We should have more
ceremonies like this."

    Most important, Hirohito, in his constancy and serenity,
served as an inspiration and a comfort to his people. While
gamely adapting himself to the wrenching changes of postwar
Japan, he continued to incarnate many of his culture's most
ancient and hallowed customs. One of them required the Emperor
to compose a traditional poem each year. In 1946, with his
country broken and his role diminished, Hirohito took his leave
of divine status with this calm verse: "Under the weight of
winter snow/ The pine tree's branches bend/ But do not break."
By 1987, he could write a different verse about his rebuilt
land: "Year by year, as our country/ Has recovered from the
war/ The dawn redwood has grown taller."