Japanese Imperial Family Today

  On March 25, Her Imperial Highness Princess Yoko of Mikasa Family, 38, attended a lecture on the decline of hearing function in Iruma City, Saitama Prefecture. In her speech, she explained that she herself has sensorineural hearing loss and said, "Indifference is the worst thing. I hope that many people will spend time in a day wondering if their hearing is okay.”   Last December, Princess Yoko became the honorary president of the Japan Universal Sound Design Association, a non-profit organization that supports dialogue and other activities for people with hearing loss. In her speech, she described her own symptoms: "Basically, I cannot hear low sounds very well. He also has difficulty with high tones, so there are parts I cannot hear in people’s speech.”  She said that because of her position, it is difficult for her to hear back what the other person says, and she sometimes has to imagine the conversation herself, and there are times when she cannot hear what th...

  The Imperial Household Agency announced that Her Imperial Highness Princess Akiko of Mikasa family, 40, will become a visiting professor at Ritsumeikan University (Kyoto City) as of April 1. She will give lectures on Japanese and Kyoto culture as a guest speaker for classes at the Faculty of Letters and the graduate school. The university has requested that Mr. Akira take up the position. The appointment will last for one year, until the end of March 2023.   Akiko worked at Ritsumeikan University's Kinugasa Research Institute from September 2009 to March 2011. Since then, she has continued to serve as an invited researcher and visiting cooperative researcher at the organization. This time,in addition to being a guest speaker, she is scheduled to speak at symposiums and lectures related to Kyoto's culture.   After graduating from Gakushuin University, Akiko conducted research on Japanese art collections abroad at Oxford University, and in 2010 she became the fi...

  On the morning of January 18, the annual event of the Imperial Household, the "New Year’s Poetry Reading," was held in the Matsunoma Room of the Imperial Palace. The theme of this year's event was "Mado (Window)”. The participants took PCR tests beforehand and took all possible precautions against coronas before the event.   The Emperor and Empress of Japan and eight members of the Imperial Family recited their poems. Among them, Her Imperial Highness Princess Toshinomiya Aiko, the daughter of Their Majesties, who came of age last year and sang for the first time at the New Year's Poetry Festival, wrote a poem about her feelings when she attended the Eton Summer School in England when she was in high school, which drew much praise.   The following is an introduction to their poems and the background of the poems published by the Imperial Household Agency. Each member of the family translated the poems into English by themselves, and Her Majesty the ...

  Can They Perform ‘Nousai no gi‘?   Princess Mako and Komuro are still in the position of being unofficially engaged, but if they become officially engaged, they will have to go through the "Nousai no gi".   However, due to cost and other aspects, it would be difficult to do this in reality. Mako's father, Prince Akishino, said at his birthday press conference last November that he approves of their marriage, but also said that "marriage is not the same as engagement," suggesting that even if they were to get married, they would not be in a position to perform the Nousai ceremony.   The formal betrothal ceremony of the Japanese Imperial Family is called Nousai-no-gi (i.e. Rite of Offering). It is said to have been handed down as far back as the time of Emperor Nintoku (end of the 4th century to the early 5th century), and this became the origin of the Yuino, which is also performed by common people.   To put it simply, yuno is a ceremony in ...

 What is the Lump-sum Payment for Leaving the Imperial Family?   When a member of the Imperial Family leaves his/her Imperial status, a one-off allowance (i.e. lump-sum money) will be paid out. (Imperial House Economy Law, Article 6) In other words, whatever the reason, be it marriage or any other reason, if you cease to be a member of the Imperial Family, the lump sum will be paid. This is stipulated to be for the purpose of "preserving the dignity of those who have been members of the Imperial Family.   The amount of the lump sum is estimated to be around 150 million yen (some $1.37 M) in Mako's case. The criteria for calculating this amount are found in Article 6, Paragraph 7-2 of the Imperial Household Economy Law. 　 "In the case of a person who leaves the status of a member of the Imperial Family pursuant to the provisions of Articles 11, 12 and 14 of the Imperial Household Law, the amount is equivalent to ten times the annual amount calculated for memb...

    　 Six members of the Japanese Imperial Family over the age of 65, including the Emperor and Empress, were vaccinated against the new coronavirus on the 1 st of this month.  The Emperor Emeritus and his wife were vaccinated at their residence, Sento Temporary Palace (Minato-ku, Tokyo), while Prince and Princess Hitachi, Princess Nobuko Tomohito, and Princess Hisako Takamado were vaccinated at the Imperial Household Agency Hospital in the Imperial Palace. The Asahi Shimbun reported this as a story from an official. This is the first time that members of the Imperial Family have been vaccinated. (Taken from the Imperial Household Agency website) According to media reports, seven members of the Imperial Family, including the 87-year-old Emperor Emeritus Akihito and the 86-year-old Empress Emerita Michiko, are eligible for the priority vaccination program for those over 65 years old, and six others, excluding the 97-year-old Princess Yuriko of Mikasa, have been va...