On January 2 of this year, I paid a visit to the Imperial Palace to celebrate
New Year for the Emperor and other imperial families.
This was my first experience to enter the premises of the Imperial
Palace, and I was impressed to see so many people with the same intention as
mine gathering in the square in front of the palace (a total of over 80 thousand
people paid a visit the Imperial Palace on this day).
Being one among those tens of thousands of visitors, I was waiting
for the appearance of His Imperial Majesty and other imperial families. At around
11 o'clock, as soon as they appeared on the deck, the visitors started waving
Japanese national flags and praising aloud His Imperial Majesty, wishing him
health and longevity. Then, His Majesty and families responded by waving us.
At this time, I felt that all the visitors in that place were
spiritually bound with each other as subjects of His Majesty, and realized that
the Emperor makes our nation what it is now. Maybe, Japanese are unaware why
Japan is what it is now, that Japan is what it is now because of His Majesty. Then,
a thought came to me that whenever facing hardship, we can work as one to
overcome it because of the fact that we have His Majesty.
Finally, let me add this: one of the greatest things about our Emperor
is that the Emperor of Japan boasts the world's longest history of bloodline. Our
Emperor is the 125'th generation of the bloodline that started from the first
Emperor Jinmu.
