On the front page of the English section of the December 24, 2016, issue of The Rafu Shimpo, there was a small photograph of the emperor and empress of Japan. The caption read in part, “Emperor Akihito, accompanied by his wife Empress Michiko, waves to the crowd at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on December 23, his 83rd birthday.” The Japanese American daily newspaper still deems the emperor’s birthday as newsworthy.
Until 1948 the reigning emperor’s birthday was a national holiday in Japan called Tenchōsetsu. Before the war, Tenchōsetsu was an important occasion in Nik…