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Michiko was sent to Tokyo's Sacred Heart School, where the names of the girls read like a roll call of Japan's wealthiest families, instead of to the Gakushuin (Peers' School), which is reserved mainly for the descendants of the blue-blooded kazoku families. Sacred Heart was a congenial place, long on over-politeness. Comments a Sacred Heart graduate: "The aim was to shape us all into spotless and expensive pieces of jewelry, and Michiko got the same treatment as the rest." Though the school was Roman Catholic, Michiko remained a Buddhist.
Scholastically, she was at the top of her class. A tremendous organizer, Michiko was elected president of the student governing committee and began to be called sotsu-no-nai, which roughly means "perfect," but also has a snide connotation of being a little too perfect, too ladylike, too obedient to the rules. A professor once said with a touch of asperity: "Michiko-san, your only defect is that you have none." She appeared taken aback by the remark.
She loved her summer vacations at the mountain resort of Karuizawa, where the Shoda villa lies within sight of the smoking crater of the Asama volcano. Michiko lived in tennis shorts, was on the courts nearly every day, enjoyed dropping into the little village shops for rice balls and noodles—a passion that absorbed nearly all her monthly allowance of $2.78. The reddish tinge had vanished from her hair, but she seemed ashamed of its persistent and un-Japanese curliness, and confessed that her childhood nickname had been "Temple-chau," after Shirley Temple.
The Matchmaker. The Shoda family gave thought to Michiko's future, and there is evidence that she formally met selected prospects at a miai, or a meeting arranged with a view to a possible match. One candidate is said to have been the son of a soap-company president; reportedly he backed away, declaring Michiko's personality "too cold." Michiko seems to have been drawn to a Japanese diplomat and was disappointed when he was sent to a post in Europe. He wrote her long, graceful letters dealing mostly with the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen, at a time when she was reading Steinbeck and Faulkner. Asked Michiko crossly: "Does he think I am still a child?"
The Shodas could aim high for their daughter, since by 1955 the family Nisshin Flour Milling Co. was the largest in Asia, with current sales totaling $93 million a year. Michiko joked with an uncle: "If Crown Prince Akihito were only a little taller, I might fall in love with him." Michiko (5 ft. 3½ in.) had several times seen the crown prince (5 ft. 5 in.), who also vacationed at Karuizawa, but had not yet met him.
The meeting took place on an August day in 1957. Michiko, then 22, had grown into a young woman who moved with fluid grace, spoke in the soft, cultured tones of a Sacred Heart graduate, had quick, attentive eyes and a slow, demure smile. She radiated a maidenly appeal rather than sexiness, and there was the fascinating impression of a number of locked doors lying behind her reserved manner.