Weddings, Festivals Put Off : Japan Begins ‘Mourning’ as Hirohito Clings to Life

Japan is in an unofficial state of mourning for Emperor Hirohito, even though the 87-year-old monarch continues to cling to life.

In an air of grim anticipation, couples are postponing weddings, companies are canceling receptions or delaying announcements of new products, and shrines are scrapping traditional autumn festivals. Flags are not being flown at half-staff yet, but an awkward protocol of self-restraint overshadows the business of ordinary life as the emperor remains in critical but stable condition.

Cancellations of cultural events and parties started soon after Hirohito’s illness took a sudden turn for the worse Sept. 19, on the assumption that he could die at any moment and make such functions highly inauspicious.

But the emperor has fought courageously against the internal hemorrhaging, fever, jaundice and anemia associated with his pancreatic cancer. No one knows how much longer he can hold on, but in the meantime Japanese are conforming to a social atmosphere in which almost any kind of celebration is deemed inappropriate.

Popular singer Hiroshi Itsuki and actress Yufuko Kazu called off the lavish wedding reception they had planned. Similar steps have been taken by non-celebrity couples.

Affected are a wide range of activities, from trivial matters to grave affairs of state. Nikko Securities Co. canceled a sports outing for employees. Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa stayed home from the International Monetary Fund conference in West Berlin.

Tourists in Kyoto, the ancient capital, must make do without the time-honored Jidai Matsuri and Kurama Fire Festival on Oct. 22. Friday’s edition of the Japan Times lists more than a dozen autumn festivals that have been canceled “because of concern for the emperor’s health.”

Some intellectuals bemoan the trend as indicative of right-wing influence that exaggerates the importance of the emperor’s supposedly imminent death and bolsters the controversial role of the imperial system. But many Japanese are simply irritated, or mystified.

“The sense that events have to be canceled while he is still alive is almost out of the world of science fiction,” Mitsuharu Inoue, a popular novelist, wrote in the latest edition of the magazine Weekly Post. “I can’t help but think that we Japanese are a strange people.”

Scenes of thousands of well-wishers flocking to the Imperial Palace each day demonstrate a “national characteristic of following blindly,” Inoue said.

Despite growing complaints about overreaction to the situation, organizations are continuing to comply with the de facto rules of mourning lest they be attacked for doing the wrong thing.

“There’s a lot of justifiable criticism about what’s happening, but we’re not a completely private outfit and we have to go along with the mood of self-restraint,” said Shoichi Omagari, an official at the Institute for International Studies and Training, a government-supported research group that canceled an event set for Oct. 12. “We really have no choice.”