Sayako Kuroda (Princess Sayako): Current Events


If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Elspeth said:
I'm not sure about her position specifically, but apparently if any of the Japanese photographers overstep their bounds in trying to get photos of the royals, they and their employers are made to suffer for it. Same for the journalists who write articles. So the IHA has a lot of control over the press too; if the press was told that certain sorts of photos of Sayako Kuroda were unacceptable, then almost certainly they wouldn't be taking them.

You're attributing too much to the IHA, they don't have control over the press. What they do have control over is the press's access to the Imperial Family members. The IHA press office gives journalists permission to attend or not attend the press conferences that the royals give for their birthdays and before foreign tours. The Japanese media itself is a 'closed shop', Foreign correspondents in Japan complain about the fact they are shut out of the "kisha" clubs, Japanese reporters clubs, Japanese organisations and the government have a tendency to only release information only to the kisha clubs and therefore leave the Foreign correspondents out of the loop of the information that is given out. It's not just that the IHA press office is selective as to who receives their information other Japanese organisations, including the government is as well.
Japanese journalists self-censor when it comes to the royals, as one journalists put it, 'If I write something that's wrong about a person I have to publicly apologise, if I write something that is wrong about a member of the Imperial Family then the publisher of my paper has to apologise'. Public apologies by officials are part of Japanese culture, 2 years ago there was a train crash, the first in 40 years. Within hours the directors of the train company were on TV publicly apologising to the general public for the fact that there had been an accident.
There's no paparazzi in Japan, none trying to take photos of royals or Japanese celebrities, it's all part of the Japanese culture of respect. Photos of Sayako Kuroda are taken, there's a recent one where she was at the same concert as the Empress and Princess Kiko and there also have been photos of Sayako driving through the Imperial Palace gates visiting her parents. But there are no paparazzi stalking her when she leaves her appartment, goes about her daily routine as all that goes against the whole respect culture.
And it's not because there's a threat of punishment or the IHA will make the photographers or their employers suffer. It's more to do with Japanese societal values of respect.
 
Was her husband a widower?

I know I am asking this question a bit late but do you know why Mr Kuroda got married so late? Has he been married before? With the princess I understand that she got married so late because it is obviously very complicated with leaving her family and losing her status etc. but Mr Kuroda is a commoner. And I understand that in Japan people usually marry earlier in life and not just as a custom but nearly like a duty. I have heard that people in Japan will think that you are weird or that s.th. is very wrong with you if you don´t marry. Can anybody explain that?
 
I know I am asking this question a bit late but do you know why Mr Kuroda got married so late? Has he been married before? With the princess I understand that she got married so late because it is obviously very complicated with leaving her family and losing her status etc. but Mr Kuroda is a commoner. And I understand that in Japan people usually marry earlier in life and not just as a custom but nearly like a duty. I have heard that people in Japan will think that you are weird or that s.th. is very wrong with you if you don´t marry. Can anybody explain that?

By current Japanese norms neither Sayako nor Yoshiki Kuroda married late in life. More and more Japanese are getting married ( for the first time) in their mid and late 30s. This trend is something that is contributing to the population crisis, for the past few years the birth rate has been lower than the death rate and as Japan isn't a country that has significant numbers of immigrants, the population is actually dropping.
Sayako herself for her 34th or 35th birthday interview was asked if she had some comment on the trend for women in particular to marry later in life. ( She gave a non-commital answer)

Many years ago the trend was for Japanese to marry earlier ( in their early 20's) but this hasn't been the case for a long time. The idea that you're weird if you don't marry is an old one too as many women in particular are choosing to remain single. Japan is still a country where women have to make the choice of either a career or marriage, both is extremely difficult and most women give up their careers when they marry or at the birth of their first child. They never return to outside employment.

A PS Just remembered a rather insulting name from the past about women marrying late. They were called "Christmas cake" that's because as the saying went women like Christmas cake ( which in Japan is a sponge cake with fresh strawberries) are old and stale after the 25th. In the case of women it meant their 25th birthday.
But as I said before fewer women marry young now a days, so the saying has died.
 
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I obviously was not up to date concerning marrying age in Japan. :flowers:Thank you for answering so fast and with so many details!
 
A PS Just remembered a rather insulting name from the past about women marrying late. They were called "Christmas cake" that's because as the saying went women like Christmas cake ( which in Japan is a sponge cake with fresh strawberries) are old and stale after the 25th. In the case of women it meant their 25th birthday.
But as I said before fewer women marry young now a days, so the saying has died.


That is really just mean.:ermm:
 
No news from Sayako Kuroda, so far ?
 
Does someone know if she is in contact with her imperial family?
 
She's been photographed attending private events with her family, so although she doesn't take part in their official lives, she's still included in their personal life.
 
Any even little news about commoner life of Mrs Kuroda?
 
In September Mr Yoshiki Kuroda, husband of former Pss Nori-no-miya Sayako, has passed the Tokyo metropolitan government's managerial promotion examination for fiscal 2009
Article in After Hours Japan
 
Are there any news of Sayako, perhaps having a family or so?
 
Are there any news of Sayako, perhaps having a family or so?
Although she is a commoner by now (and the press is not supposed to cover her life´s daily events) I do not doubt that we´d know it if she had a child. And as she has turned 42 this year, I doubt that she will still have one in the future. Sometimes one could think that this is some sort of fashion (or curse or tradition or however you´d like to call it) in the imperial family to procreate but sparingly...:ermm: Two brothers of the late Emperor Hirohito had no children of their own and the only brother of the present emperor is childless, too.
Maybe you´d like to have a look at this link. It is not new but I think is quite charming. In the third pic you see Mr and Mrs Kuroda (with Princess Kiko and little Hisahito in front).
 
Mrs sayako kuroda is the only daughter of emperor Akihito, she married a commoner and lost her title and status in the royal family and yet what position/status does she have for although now a commoner she is still the daughter of the emperor and could still visit her family? Does she still need to go through security to enter the palace .....???she is a commoner now by marriage but she is royal by blood.
 
...and could still visit her family? Does she still need to go through security to enter the palace .....???she is a commoner now by marriage but she is royal by blood.
Definitely, Mrs Kuroda visits her family often. She does not take part at the photosessions, but accompanies Their Majesties (for example, at the concerts).
Mrs Kuroda has some privilegies, her elder brothers have not. She may hug and kiss her parents in front of all the stuff (the breaking of protocol which is not allowed for the members of Imperial family). It's good to be the only daughter!:flowers:
Sayako-sama is very easy going and cheerful, always in good temper.

According to today's Mainichi Shimbun article, the Empress, the Princess Akishino and Mrs Kuroda are attending His Majesty at the hospital. Just like all families do.

I was lucky to watch Mrs Kuroda arriving to the Imperial palace last summer. She did not go through security, actually. Her car entered the gates without any slowdown.
 
These pix on the little train are not new but so lovely to see again !
 
The picture of UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova and Mrs Sayako Kuroda was taken in 2009.
It proves that Mrs Kuroda is not being secluded after her marriage, she has her own happy life and takes part in charity projects in Japan.:)

**Pic** - Irina Bokova office
 
Emperor's daughter Kuroda becomes special priestess at Ise Shrine
Ise Shrine said Monday that Sayako Kuroda, the 43-year-old daughter of Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, has assumed the post of special sacred priestess. Kuroda, who took the post on April 26, will assist 81-year-old Atsuko Ikeda, older sister of the emperor and the most sacred priestess at the shrine presiding over rituals. The imperial family has close ties with the shrine in Mie Prefecture, central Japan. It enshrines their ancestral gods.
 
Thanks for the update!
It is great that Mrs. Kuroda will continue the tradition by becoming the priestess.
 
You're welcome. :)
I agree, it's nice to see Sayako continuing the priestess tradition. On the other hand, it's really sad she no longer can perform official duties; Sayako was a great support for the Emperor and for many years work tirelessly on his behalf. I hope the new proposals go ahead and Japanese Princesses do not automatically lose all their rights (styles and titles included) upon marrying.
 
Thanks for the info! :flowers:

There is a Japan Times article that says that there is a special reason for the former princess supporting her aunt.

Kuroda will serve until the October 2014 end of a series of festivities for the Shikinen Sengu event, in which symbols of the gods are transferred to a new shrine building that is reconstructed every 20 years. Ikeda took up her post in 1988. The new post was created to help her due to her advanced age.
 
Thank you very much for those pictures, ChiaraC! :flowers:
The pictures from her first ceremony as priestess are lovely.
Sayako has changed quite a lot since I've last seen her pictures.
 
Sayako Kuroda conducted a ritual at Ise Shrine, on occasion of the Niinamesai festival (November, 23), an important annual rite celebrated by the emperor in the eleventh month in which he makes an offering of the newly harvested rice to the kami of heaven and earth and partakes of the rice offering in communion with the kami. Originally a harvest festival, the holiday has become an occasion for people to honor labor and give thanks to one another.

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You are very welcome, rominet! :flowers:

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Sayako Kuroda conducted in June a festival at Ise Grand Shrine: pic

Here Mr and Mrs Kuroda attend a ritual together.
 
Sayako Kuroda participated in the 'Sengyo no Gi' as the provisional head of the ceremony at Ise Jingu Shrine on October 2, 2013 in Ise, Mie, Japan. Once in 20 years Ise Jingu move the object of worship to its new main shrine constructed at the Inner Shrine (Naiku), in a ceremony called Sengyo no Gi. The Inner Shrine is the place of worship of Amaterasu Omikami, the goddess of the sun, a major deity of the Shinto religion.

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伊勢神宮式年遷宮 夜の儀式を前に、安倍首相ら多くの招待客の姿(13/10/02) - YouTube

Edit: See also:
Abe sparks constitutional debate with attendance at Ise Jingu ceremony
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has stirred domestic controversy by visiting a Shinto shrine closely associated with the emperor, which some assert is at odds with the constitutional separation of religion and politics. Abe attended a ceremony called Sengyo no Gi held Oct. 2 at Ise Jingu shrine in Mie Prefecture. He is the first prime minister in 84 years to do so. [...]

"In the past, Ise Jingu was the fountainhead for unifying politics and religion and national polity fundamentalism," said Hisashi Yamanaka, 82, a children's literature author who has also written works related to Yasukuni Shrine. "Abe's act is clearly a return to the ways before World War II." [...]

Representing the imperial family at the ceremony was Prince Fumihito.
Prince Akishino attending the ceremony: 1 ** 2
 
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Here is an interesting Chicago Tribune-article featuring the last rebuilding of the Ise shrine that took place in 1993, with a lot of fascinating background info:

Rebuilding Japanese Unity
Ancient Ritual Has A Modern Purpose
August 19, 1993, By Merrill Goozner
[...]For many contemporary Japanese, the Shinto religion and the Ise cult that stands at its pinnacle help form a sense of uniqueness. They contribute to the widely held (though archeologically incorrect) conviction that the Japanese are a racially pure people chosen by a pantheon of gods shared by no other nation, and therefore one that cannot be understood by outsiders.

It's a view propagated at the Ise shrine. Japan's "ethnic religion is due to the unique history of ancient Japan, in which a single race formed a single nation, something rarely found anywhere else in the world," the guide to the shrine proclaims.

Every year, 6 million to 7 million people make a pilgrimage to Ise. In this restoration year, the shrine's guardians expect an additional 3 million visitors to the spiritual home of the two most powerful symbols in Japanese life.

The shrine's inner sanctum is the spiritual home of the sun goddess Amaterasu Omikami, who is the mythological ancestor of the imperial family and gave Japan wet rice agriculture. But it is only since the Meiji Restoration of the late 1800s, when Japan revolutionized its way of life and government, that Ise Grand Shrine was given a political symbolisms. Initially, Ise was the imperial family shrine and wasn't open to outsiders. [...]

The nation-builders of the late 1800s were rapidly creating a modern army, industries and government institutions needed to compete with the West. They wanted an institution capable of providing ideological unity to a people that had emerged late from a divisive feudalism. They turned to Shintoism and transformed its main symbols.
"The chief business of the Ise Shrines between 1868 and 1945 was the promotion of Ise as an institution to which all Japanese were connected," wrote Harvard professor Helen Hardacre in "Shinto and the State-1868-1988." "It was a main focal point of the myth of the unification of the populace." [...]
 
On June 20th, the Ise Shrine in Mie Prefecture announced Sayako Kuroda is the chief priestess. Her aunt, Atsuko Ikeda, retired on the 19th after serving for 29 years since 1988. Mrs. Kuroda began assisting in April 2012 and was temporary priestess in 2013, in consideration of Mrs. Ikeda's health, at the 62nd shine rebuilding. She is the 11th Imperial or ex-Imperial family member to serve since the Meiji era.

Sources: Jiji, Yomiuri

ETA: Emperor's daughter becomes supreme priestess at Ise Jingu shrine - The Mainichi

...Kuroda, 48, on Monday officially replaced the 86-year-old Atsuko Ikeda, elder sister of the emperor, who served in the post for 29 years, after the imperial family requested her retirement, the shrine in Mie Prefecture said without giving other details...
 
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On June 24th, Sayako Kuroda visited her parents after her appointment as chief priestess of Ise Shrine. She will represent the Emperor at festivals in February, June, October, November, and December. According to the IHA, Sayako is also conducting work as a visiting researcher at the Yamashinai Institute for Avian Studies and an outpatient researcher at the Tamagawa University Educational Museum.

Source: pages 1-2 of Sankei Imperial Weekly #493
 
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