![]() ![]() George has been able to visit with the prince a few times in Japan, including at an official wedding celebration for the royal couple. The Japanese royal officially became crown prince in 1991 and married rising diplomat Masako Owada, now Empress Masako, in 1993 after her own two-year period of studying international relations at Oxford. "He was prepared to assume his duty to be the crown prince and eventually the emperor - it was very clear." ![]() "There was a certain sadness of losing the freedom that he had in the university, but at the same time he said he was gratefully accepting his duties." "His life would be totally different in Japan," George said. In 1985, a few weeks after his Oxford stint ended, the prince traveled to the United States and spent a night as a guest of George's family in a quiet mountain town about two and a half hours by car outside of Charleston. The young Prince Hiro also treasured the new experience of doing his own laundry during his graduate studies in England.Īt Oxford's Merton College, the prince worked on a thesis paper related to 18th-century navigation and traffic on the River Thames and later wrote a memoir about his time in England titled "The Thames and I" in the English translation. media at the time reported that his grandfather Emperor Hirohito only handled money personally once in his life. ("Prince Hiro" at Oxford University in October 1983.) While living in adjacent dormitory rooms, the friends enjoyed playing music - the prince on his viola as George improvised country-style tunes on a guitar - and going out to a student pub where George remembers the prince delighting in mundane things that his sheltered life had denied him, like, for example, handling money. In the New York Times' coverage, a clipping of which George has framed, the two men were photographed smiling during the brief exchange. He has a good sense of humor (and) I thought we would be good friends." The future lawyer then speculated the two could induce a barrage of camera flashes by leaning in and staging a conversation. Hiro said to me, 'You will get used to this,'" George recalled. "I was surprised because there were hundreds of photographers in front of us. A photo of the two sharing a moment of levity later appeared on the front page of The New York Times. ![]() George and the prince, whose official name in his college days was Hironomiya, first met in 1983 at the university's matriculation ceremony where they were placed alongside each other by name in alphabetical order. "Monarchies in some countries have scandals and erode moral standards, (but) Hiro doesn't have that at all," George told Kyodo News, describing the new emperor as a "perfect fit" to "maintain tradition but also respect change" in Reiwa, the new Japanese imperial era which began with the new emperor's enthronement. ![]() (Photo taken April 22, 2019, in Charleston, West Virginia, shows American lawyer Keith George holding a framed clipping from The New York Times showing a photograph of him speaking to Japan's Prince Hiro, now Emperor Naruhito, during the 1983 entrance ceremony for the University of Oxford.) "The Japanese people are fortunate they have him as the emperor, that he represents Japan," said Keith George, 57, an American lawyer from Charleston, West Virginia, who studied at Oxford in England for the same two years in the 1980s as Emperor Naruhito. Japanese Emperor Naruhito is well-prepared and temperamentally suited to the role he assumed Wednesday after his father's abdication, said a friend from his time at the University of Oxford, reflecting on his early impressions of the royal figure then known as Prince Hiro. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |