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Teacher! Teacher! On Oct. 20, 1934, while the militarists were firmly in control, a daughter was born to Businessman Hidesaburo Shoda and his wife Tomi. and became the newest member of a harddriving, alert family of samurai origin. Her father and grandfather operated the prosperous Nisshin Flour Milling Co.; one of her uncles would become president of Osaka University, another a professor of geology at Tokyo University, a third a professor of physics.
The baby, unusual in that she had curly red hair, became the family pet in the high-gabled, ten-room Tokyo house where the Shodas still live. She was named Michiko (Beautiful-Wisdom-Child), was always neat and obedient, slept with her arms wrapped about a toy Teddy bear. Michiko early exhibited the family drive. At elementary school she was usually the first to answer any question, raising her hand and vigorously crying: "Sensei! Sensei!" (Teacher, Teacher). At home the daily routine was calm and cultured. Michiko had tea and cakes at 3 p.m., studied, dined at 6, then joined the family again at 8, while her mother played Chopin.
The Shoda house was not damaged in the fire-bombing of Tokyo during the war, but five of the company's flour mills were gutted. Others had to close down from lack of supplies; still others were converted to make vitamin pills and airplane parts. In March 1945 the Shodas moved out of battered Tokyo and returned to their ancestral home in the village of Tatebayashi on the wide, windy Kanto Plain, one of the nation's greatest rice-producing areas. Michiko's ability to speak English and play the piano amazed the village children; her keenness in class annoyed them. They teased her, called her names and pulled her long, reddish hair. Michiko flew at them in a fury, slapped some and wrestled on the ground with others.
In her two years in the country, Michiko filled out and glowed with health. She also picked up a trace of the local bei-bei dialect (Tatebayashi people tend to attach bei to the end of every phrase—the bei means no more than a reiterated "uh" does in English). Later, when she was interviewed on television after her engagement to the crown prince, Michiko amused some viewers with her faint Tatebayashi accent.
Michiko was an eleven-year-old girl in 1946 when the Emperor publicly disclaimed his divine origin. No longer did schoolchildren have to bow low before an unveiled portrait of the God-Emperor, whose dynasty was so ancient and unique that it did not even have a last name. For the first time in 2,600 years, an Emperor of Japan went among the common people—not just to drive in state through "dead cities" where everyone was compelled to avert his face from the imperial countenance, but to visit factories and chat with workers. A shy, scholarly but retiring man, Emperor Hirohito was clearly miserable in the folksy role, could seldom think of anything better to do than jerkily raise his battered felt hat, as if trying to hang it on a peg just out of reach.