New empress of Japan is a Belmont High School grad
Masako Owada, now 55, went on to study at Harvard.
A Belmont High School alumna is the new empress of Japan.
Masako Owada, a member of the Class of ’81, took on the title of Empress Masako when her husband became the 126th emperor of Japan on Wednesday.
As an empress who has drawn comparisons in the Japanese media and elsewhere to Princess Diana, Owada has come a long way since she was a student at Belmont High. The daughter of a top diplomat from Japan, she moved to Belmont when she was a teenager and lived on Juniper Road.
Owada participated in the math team and French club at Belmont High, and she smiled brightly in her senior photo. In her class yearbook, she wrote of fond memories of the Kennedy Library, Tokyo, ESL, and “M*A*S*H,’’ which was the senior class play that year.
“I came here at the beginning of the junior year and had a wonderful time,’’ she wrote. “I thank all my friends. … friendships forever.’’
Owada, now 55, went on to study at Harvard, where she served as president of the Japanese Cultural Society and graduated magna cum laude with a degree in economics in 1985, according to the Harvard Crimson.
She worked as a diplomat prior to joining Japan’s royal family. She met her husband-to-be in Tokyo at a welcoming party for a Spanish princess in 1986. She was reportedly not interested in his courtship right away, and it wasn’t until December 1992 that she accepted his proposal, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Japan’s new Empress Masako waves as she returns to the Crown Prince Palace after attending the imperial ritual at the Imperial Palace Wednesday in Tokyo.
