Japanese

"Difficulties the Crown Princess is facing with"

The contents of the press conference, which Crown Prince of Japan held prior to the visit
of Denmark, Spain, and Portugal from May 12 to 24, have created the ripple. With reference to the inquiry about the thought of visiting those three countries, he mentioned present appearance and restorative prospect of Princess Masako who is under the medical treatment over a long period of time and therefore could not accompany him on the trip.
In the course of the explanation, he brought the imperial household's old constitution and the movement that denied Princess Masako's individual character as a part of the causes that made Princess Masako's in the poor physical condition. It is very unusual for imperial family to perform such an utterance that might be taken as a criticism against imperial household or imperial household agency. Since the publicity of the imperial family is conventionally controlled severely by the Imperial Household Agency, the figure of the imperial family that meets our eyes seems to be created as stereotyped character that imperial family is supposed to be, and there is almost no opportunity to hear the Imperial Family's outspoken comments nor personal opinions. This situation reminds me of the press restraints of North Korea in the sense of operating information even though the purpose and the intention of doing that are not same. (I don't understand why Japanese media does not criticize such an unusual situation).

It is impossible to imagine the difficulties of Princess Masako who married into such an isolated world from a civilian family. Since she married with crown prince, she has had her career and character as an excellent diplomat denied and her dream of imperial diplomacy deprived of under the feudal sense of values that the task of woman is to bear a boy as an heir. I have no way of finding pressures and agonies that she has experienced, however, her genuine feeling was accidentally expressed at the time of interview after she bore her daughter, Princess Aiko and condensed in the words, "I was overwhelmed with gratitude for Princess Aiko to be born". However, since Princess Aiko is a girl, Crown Princess Masako has been burdened another responsibility of bearing boy since then. I hope this remark of the Crown Prince to become the help for her and to make imperial household more accessible to the society. (End)