Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II

by John W. Dower

Yet in the end their collaboration proved remarkably effective in dressing the emperor in new clothes, ensuring his personal security, and redefining the throne as the centerpiece of the new democracy. In the process, a striking relationship of open social fraternization between court circles and the upper echelons of the occupation staff was cultivated. The imperial household took the initiative in this, quickly revealing a genius for grasping the Americans’ love of aristocratic pomp and pageantry. Invitations were regularly extended to high occupation officials to participate in the court’s genteel pastimes. Geisha parties became bonding places for the middling elites, but the upper-class activities to which high-ranking members of the occupation force were invited were refined to a fault: firefly catching, cherry-blossom viewing on the palace grounds, bamboo-sprout hunts, traditional sword-fighting exhibitions at the palace, even an occasional wild-boar hunt. Nothing was more prized, however, than being invited to an imperial duck hunt.