And then there was one?: Japan's right royal crisis | The Japan Times Online

And then there was one?: Japan's right royal crisis | The Japan Times Online

And then there was one?: Japan's right royal crisis
Dwindling number of males could bring about constitutional quandary

By COLIN P.A. JONES

According to the Japanese Constitution, the Emperor is the symbol of the Japanese state and the unity of the Japanese people. You could thus say it is symbolic that the Imperial household is now facing an unprecedented demographic crisis, one that may ultimately lead to a succession dilemma and possibly even a constitutional quandary. While the recent hospitalization of 78-year-old Emperor Akihito due to illness has probably made more people think about succession, a more urgent cause of official concern may lie elsewhere: marriage.
( interesting - piltically and historically )

Men can be sexy when talking about themselves | The Japan Times Online

Men can be sexy when talking about themselves | The Japan Times Online

Men can be sexy when talking about themselves

By KAORI SHOJI

Special to The Japan Times

An often misunderstood perception about the Japanese language is that it's long-winded and excessively polite. True, there's an entire lexicon devoted to politeness, called keigo (敬語, the language of reverence) and in Kyoto, there's such a thing as kyūtei kotoba (宮廷言葉, palatial language) — spoken almost exclusively among established families of imperial blood, and most of it indecipherable to the lower classes. But that's only one aspect of a diverse and ever-morphing language equipped with infinite shades of nuances and tiny, detailed quirks. And one of those details is seen (and heard) in the use of pronouns.

( linguistics and the search for machoism )