From the Publisher

By Elizabeth Valk Long

During her six years in our Tokyo bureau, correspondent Kumiko Makihara has paid close attention to the changing role of women in Japan, which, as in other countries, is often related to conflicting demands posed by careers and marriage. She is also no stranger to stories involving the Japanese royal family, having contributed to our coverage in 1990 of the wedding of Prince Akishino and of Emperor Akihito's ascension to the Chrysanthemum Throne. While all this background proved to be essential grounding in reporting our story on next week's marriage of Crown Prince Naruhito and former diplomat Masako Owada, it did not quite reach into the, er, heart of the matter. "The topic of most interest to everyone was why a Harvard- and Oxford-educated upper- middle-class woman decided to give up her career and marry into the imperial family," says Makihara. "Only Masako Owada knows the answer to that question, and she wasn't talking."

With a one-on-one interview ruled out, Makihara, 34, who has also lived and attended school in Britain and the U.S., searched out the next-best sources of information: Owada's friends and acquaintances. "We interviewed more than 20 people who know her, and tried to piece together a portrait from their anecdotes," she says. "Her childhood friends had the most to say, perhaps because she went to the same school in Japan for nearly seven years."

The reporting was made yet more difficult by the tradition of secrecy surrounding royal events. Tokyo reporter Hiroko Tashiro pored over stacks of clippings about previous royal matches for leads on shops and artisans -- never publicly identified -- that may be called on to provide such ceremonial artifacts as gowns and symbolic wedding swords. Nor did pictures for the story come easily. Directing our coverage, which involved a lot of waiting outside the Owada family home, was Tokyo photo editor Eiko Reed.

Yeoman service of a different sort came from bureau driver Kazuo Tsubaki, a % former octopus salesman at the vast Tokyo fish market. Recalls Makihara: "At my request, Tsubaki-san chatted up several fishmongers to find out how the imperial household collects 2,700 fresh sea bream for its six wedding banquets." Answer: it asks fishing ports nationwide to set aside their entire catch of foot-long bream.