Japan's stressed-out royalty
2007-03-12 19:13
Eric Talmadge
Tokyo - It's not easy being a woman in Japan's royal family.
Four years after Crown Princess Masako dropped most of her official duties to recover from what officials say is a form of depression brought about by the pressures of adjusting to life in the palace, Empress Michiko is now suffering from a wide array of symptoms stemming from severe stress.
Officials announced last week that Michiko, 72, is cancelling her schedule for the time being to recover from intestinal bleeding, nose bleeds and mouth ulcers. She had been feeling ill since catching a cold last month, the palace said.
The empress' illness highlights both the pressures and secrecies of Japan's royal family, which is believed to be the oldest in the world but has fallen on hard times in recent years because of a succession crisis and, more recently, some bad press.
"It is believed that the empress is suffering from symptoms related to psychological stress," said Ichiro Kanazawa, the palace's chief medical supervisor. Officials said they believed recent coverage of the royal family might be to blame.
Officials have not said what specifically might have upset the empress.
A book on the royal family
But the palace has recently been in an uproar over the publication of a book on the royal family by Australian author Ben Hills.
The book, Princess Masako: Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne, has been slammed by the palace as disrespectful, and a Japanese publisher announced last month it decided to scrap plans to translate it into Japanese.
The book alleges that Masako has also been under intense pressure from the palace bureaucracy to conform to its traditions, keep a low profile and forego trips abroad until she bears a son.
Hills also wrote about growing tensions between members of the imperial family itself, largely generated by the pressure on Masako to produce an imperial heir.
Japan's imperial household agency and foreign ministry have demanded an apology from Hills for "disrespectful descriptions, distortions of facts and judgmental assertions with audacious conjectures and coarse logic".
The government also protested to Random House in Sydney. Hills was not immediately available for comment.
Books critical of the royal family and its palace handlers are rare in Japan.
Criticising the emperor - once revered as a living god - was regarded as a serious crime in the first half of the 20th century and there is still a strong tradition in Japan of respect for the royal family, which is zealously shielded from view by secretive palace officials.
Crown Princess Masako, Michiko's daughter-in-law, is also recuperating from stress-induced health problems brought on by the pressures of palace life.
Masako, 43, withdrew from virtually all of her public duties four years ago after being diagnosed with a stress-induced illness called "adjustment disorder".
- AP