Official Functions
The Empress is expected to be the embodiment of values such as modesty and purity. She has demonstrated a strong sense of duty throughout her life, which makes her quite popular amongst the Japanese population.
As Crown Prince and Crown Princess, Akihito and Michiko made official visits to thirty-seven countries. Since their enthronement, the Imperial Couple have visited an additional eighteen countries, and have done much to make the Imperial Family more visible and approachable in contemporary Japan.
Her official duties, apart from visits to other countries, include attendance at events and ceremonies, both inside and outside the Imperial Palace, visits to welfare and cultural facilities and receiving official guests including State Guests. For example, in 2007, she had more than 300 meetings. She also takes part in religious ceremonies with the Emperor, such as visits to Ise, Shinto shrines and Imperial Mausolea to pray to the ancestral spirits. In addition, she is an accomplished classical pianist.
One of her most important functions is the annual ceremonial harvest of silkworms at the Momijiyama Imperial Cocoonery, which is the sericulture farm on the grounds of the Imperial Palace. The Empress personally feeds the worms with mulberry leaves and takes care of them, the frames and the harvesting. Since 1994, a part of the silk production is donated by her to the Shōsōin repository in Nara. The production and harvesting of silk are part of her ceremonial duties, linked to Shintoism, Japanese culture and tradition.
Read more about this topic: Empress Michiko
Famous quotes containing the words official and/or functions:
“We were that generation called “silent,” but we were silent neither, as some thought, because we shared the period’s official optimism nor, as others thought, because we feared its official repression. We were silent because the exhilaration of social action seemed to many of us just one more way of escaping the personal, of masking for a while that dread of the meaningless which was man’s fate.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1935)
“The English masses are lovable: they are kind, decent, tolerant, practical and not stupid. The tragedy is that there are too many of them, and that they are aimless, having outgrown the servile functions for which they were encouraged to multiply. One day these huge crowds will have to seize power because there will be nothing else for them to do, and yet they neither demand power nor are ready to make use of it; they will learn only to be bored in a new way.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)