TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/011689/01168900.033

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 9KB | 149 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."