"O-Shinobi" お忍び

On Monday, March 27, I had the most amazing opportunity to meet, shake hands and speak with the emperor and empress of Japan! The emperor Akihito and his wife Michiko-sama visited Sokendai University this week on what is called "O-Shinobi" (お忍び) in Japan. According to my favorite on-line dictionary, this expression means "incognito." Thus, for the emperor and empress, the visit was unofficial, there were no press corps, and there were fewer guards and police than if the event had been official.

Apparently the emperor and empress were interested in talking to young grad students. My professor, Sharon Traweek, and I speculated on why they visited Sokendai in particular. What we came up with was: a) Their vacation home, known as Go-Yotei (御用邸) is in Hayama, the same town in which our university is located. So getting here was pretty convenient for them - we're only about a ten-minute drive up the road. b) The emperor's second son, Prince Akishino, graduated from Sokendai with a PhD degree in biology. c) Sharon speculated that, like many parents, the couple must be interested in seeing where their son went to school. Furthermore, she thinks the prince is scheduled to start a project here at Sokendai in the fall. It must be pretty hard for the imperial couple to simply show up to check out a place. This might be the way they decided to handle the situation. d) We also heard that the emperor and empress are friends with Professor Takahata, one of the prince's advisors when he studied here, and one of the acting directors of Sokendai. I heard that Takahata-sensei plays tennis with the couple sometimes on the Sokendai tennis courts. (The imperial vacation home apparently does not have its own tennis courts, so if the royal couple want to play, they come up here!)

Whatever their reasons for visiting, the couple arrived here at 11:45 am. I posted pictures of their entourage of cars on my flickr site. I was able to take pictures of the arrival from my dorm room window. After arriving, the couple went inside to the cafeteria to have a normal lunch with everyone. Some of my lucky colleagues got the opportunity to sit next to the couple and converse with them during lunchtime. One colleague, Yokoyama-san, said they talked mostly about science as the students at the table were physicists or biologists in-training. Apparently the couple knew many things already and asked extremely intelligent and thoughtful questions.

After lunch, the school director, Kodaira-san directed the imperial couple over to the table where my colleagues and I were eating. He wanted to introduce the emperor and empress to the visiting foreigners at Sokendai. I was lucky in that I happened to be standing closest to them, so I was the first one they talked to. Sharon thinks they showed a surprising amount of interest in my answers to their questions about my research. I think the reason they talked to me for so long was simply because I was first in line and they didn't want to be so rude as to move too quickly on to the next person.

In any event, we had the conversation in Japanese. At first, I did not feel shy at all and said "Good afternoon, it's a pleasure to meet you!" (Konnichi-wa, hajimemashite) in a confident voice. They said very little in the usual return, but they asked me pleasantly where I was from, if I spoke Japanese, and what type of research I was conducting. When I said "history," they asked what time period, and I answered "Meiji." They replied that this was a very interesting period to be studying, and I agreed!

Then the empress wanted to know what I thought of Sokendai and if I had made any friends at the university. When she asked me this, she made a gesture to the other Japanese in the room as if to suggest, "are these (Japanese) people here treating you hospitably." Of course I said "yes" (okage-sama desu), and I told her I thought Sokendai was a beautiful place. The empress agreed with me that the scenery was beautiful and the university was situated in a lovely, natural setting.

After this, the emperor asked me what, specifically, I studied about the Meiji period. I was worried about this because most Japanese people rarely understand my answer "treaty ports" (kyou ryuu chi), so I thought there was a good chance the imperial couple would not either. (Because most people don't understand me, I am usually paranoid that my pronunciation is completely off) But the emperor did not even blink, and responded, "Oh, such as Yokohama and Nagasaki," to which I responded "Yes! Yes!"

At this point in the conversation, I was starting to feel extremely awkward. I was worried that my Japanese was terrible, and that I was not speaking politely enough. In Japanese, there is an honorific form (keigo) which I never learned very well and so avoided using on Monday. The more I talked, the more self-conscious I became about how improper my Japanese must be. Sharon told me later that my voice got smaller and smaller, to the point where she could barely hear me anymore. (Another Japanese friend told me later though that she heard everything I said and that my Japanese was polite and proper.) Yokatta! In any event, as I said I was feeling extremely self-conscious and started simply answering questions (that I don't remember anymore) with just "yes," "yes" and even "excuse me, I'm sorry" (sumimasen, sumimasen- which literally means, "sorry for exceeding what is proper behavior"). At this point, the school director started to encourage them away toward the other foreigners. (Pheewww!)

The emperor and empress next talked to Brien Hallet, a visiting scholar from U Hawai'i, and then Sharon, my professor, in perfect English. Here, there was an interesting exchange when Sharon explained that she was a Historian of Science. The empress looked to the emperor and said, "My husband is interested in history of science. He has published an article on this topic." The emperor was very humble about this and was trying to make it seem like no big deal.

Sharon looked up the article later and sent us the following links and notes:
The article appeared in the journal Science as part of a special issue on science in Japan: "Science in Japan: A Historical Viewpoint - Early Cultivators of Science in Japan", Science Vol. 258, No. 5082, 23 October 1992, pp. 578-580.
http://www.jstor.org/view/00368075/di002185/00p00744/0

The article is mentioned on the Kunaicho [Imperial Household Agency of the Japanese government] English webpage:
http://www.kunaicho.go.jp/e03/ed03-01.html

It was reprinted in the Japan Echo, vol. 27, no. 1, 2000, with a commentary in that issue on the imperial tradition of research by TAKASHINA Shuji, Director General, National Museum of Western Art
http://www.japanecho.co.jp/sum/2000/270103.html

Apparently the emperor has published many articles and books, and he is an avid ichthyologist. The official web page on "Their Majesties the Emperor and Empress and other Members of the Imperial Family" describes the emperor's works in more detail.