Portland State Magazine Spring 2019

14 APRIL 30 marked the end of an era, when Japanese emperor Akihito, 85, citing declining health, abdicated the centuries-old ChrysanthemumThrone. He was the first emperor in 200 years to do so; the position is usually only vacated when the emperor dies. The next day, Akihito’s son, 59-year-old Crown Prince Naruhito, became the new emperor, ushering in the Reiwa reign. Beyond mere ceremony, the name change is a very big deal in Japan. Chosen by the Japanese government, Reiwa means “beautiful harmony.” It’s used in myriad ways—from commercial marketing to official documents—that touch the everyday lives of all Japanese citizens. One of the most prominent ways is in the Japanese calendar.While the Japanese go along with the rest of the world in using their own versions of May, June, July and so on, their years are marked by the official name of the emperor’s reign. So while it is 2019 in the rest of the world, it is now Reiwa 1 in Japan. On the day the Reiwa was announced, the NewYork Times reported “businesses, including toy companies, calendar makers and official stamp producers rushed to introduce versions of their products featuring the new era’s name.” Although the Japanese emperor has no official governing duties, the position—the longest-running monarchy in the world—is looked upon by the Japanese people as a way of defining who they are. He (the monarch must be a “he”) establishes national identity.The emperor’s birthday is a national holiday. “There are people in Japan who say this is what makes them special.The emperor defines what it is to be Japanese,” says historian Ken Ruoff, head of Portland State’s Japanese Studies program and one of the world’s leading authorities on the Japanese royal house. IT’S BEEN a busy winter and spring for Ruoff who, because of the abdication, has been deluged with interview requests from the New York Times,Time Magazine , Associated Press and other major news outlets. In one interview request, a journalist for the monthly Japanese magazine Sentaku called Ruoff ’s book The People’s Emperor: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy, 1945-1995 “the most important thinking on the Imperial House of all time either here in Japan or elsewhere.” In March, the Japanese news conglomerate NHK flew Ruoff to Tokyo for several shows it was producing about the abdication. NHK staff interviewed him extensively, as did a crush of reporters from other Japanese media—all because his first book, published in 2003, was so passionately received by the Japanese public. His newest book on the Heisei Monarchy (1989-2019) has been a With a history-making abdication and a new emperor on the throne, professor Ken Ruoff explains this new era for Japan. BY JOHN KIRKLAND