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- WORLD, Page 46JAPAN"With Grief, We Bid You Farewell"
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- An Emperor is laid to rest and so, too, is a turbulent era
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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 is likely
- to see.
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- A steady, cold drizzle fell on the austere black hearse as
- it moved slowly off the grounds of the Imperial Palace and onto
- the streets of Tokyo. Thousands of Japanese watched its silent
- passage, some bowing, some weeping. At Shinjuku Gyoen, an
- imperial garden, the black-painted palanquin was hoisted by 51
- members of the Imperial Guard. Above, silk curtains draped the
- coffin made of Japanese cypress. Within rested the body of
- Hirohito, the reluctant monarch who on Jan. 7, at 87, succumbed
- to cancer after occupying the Japanese throne for 62 years.
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- Somber drums banged, and flutes trilled a song of sadness.
- Shinto priests, accompanied by veiled artifacts too sacred to be
- seen, marched in solemn cadence. As 10,000 invited guests looked
- on, Emperor Akihito bowed. Facing the coffin of the man who was
- once revered by his people as a living divinity, Akihito
- intoned, "Filled with profound grief, we bid you farewell."
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