PSu Magazine Winter 2002

I the ith shouts of banzai ("May you live 10,000 years!") and wide– spread celebration, the Japan– ese people welcomed a new baby girl into the country's royal family in early December. Though no longer the near absolute power it was before the end of World War 11, the Japanese monarchy remains a potent symbolic force. How Crown Prince Naruhito, heir to the Chrysanthemum Thro Japanese define what it is to be Japan– ese." Such a window on Japanese culture has wide-ranging implications from the political to the economic. Though strug– gling with its own business woes, Japan remains the second-largest world econ– omy and is Oregon's largest foreign trad– ing partner. The country is a key ally in an increasingly volatile world. Most histori– ans would hasten to add that under– standing other cultures is not only riching, but necessary to avoid the mis- I family" crucial to maintaining broad pop– ular support. "Nothing has been more important than the image of the imperial family as an ideal family." Because the new baby is a girl, though, says Ruoff, it raises all sorts of gender role questions. Although there have been eight empresses in Japan's 1,600-year history, it would take a change in current law to allow a woman to ascend to the Japanese throne. R uoff, the father of two young girls himself, muses, "I wonder if we are in for any surprises." For instance, he says, if Crown Prince Naruhito is shown changing his daugh– ter's diaper, it could have profound sym– bolic power in the country's patriarchal society. The message, says Ruoff, would be "if n change a diaper, you can too (and if this man can change a diaper, can certainly sit on the throne." ints out that there are also who argue for a restora– nal" Japanese society r at the pinnacle. "Very narchy) is traditional," t what characterizes rrowed from the articularly Eng– many national- act that scientific apanese civiliza– d 1,600 years d in Japanese gy also claims ended from the