The main purpose of Emperor Akihito’s visit to Hawaii is to attend the 50th anniversary dinner of the Crown Prince Akihito Scholarship Wednesday night.
On Tuesday night, past and current scholarship recipients gathered for a reception.
The scholarship was established to promote understanding between the U.S. and Japan.
Dr. Christine Yano is an anthropology professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
In 1991, she received the Crown Prince Akihito Scholarship.
“For me going to Japan on the Crown Prince Akihito Scholarship was absolutely critical to my degree and to all the future research I did,” she said.
The scholarship foundation was established in 1959 to commemorate the wedding of then Crown Prince Akihito and Crown Princess Michiko.
Thus far, there have been 127 scholarship recipients.
“What I hope to do is my dissertation research and the funding for this is going to be very helpful. but it's also an honor to be picked,” said 2009 scholarship recipient, Michael Dziesinski.
The Crown Prince Akihito Scholarship is awarded annually to one graduate student in Japan for study at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and two U.H. graduate students for study in Japan.
”Before I received the scholarship and before I started studying in U.H. I had little knowledge of the U.S. as a country,” said 2001 scholarship recipient, Dr. Yohei Shinozuka.
“The emperor and empress feel very deeply attached to their scholarship and that is why they accepted with delight the invitation for them to attend this celebration,” said Sadaaki Numata, the ambassador of Japan.
For most of the scholarship recipients, Wednesday’s golden anniversary dinner will be their second time seeing the emperor and empress in person.
”If you ask any scholar what their special moment was, it's got to be the meeting the emperor and empress. None of us knew what to expect I actually took my box of Hawaiian Host chocolate macadamia nuts from Longs, but was told I couldn't give them any gift, which is fine but it's such a learning experience. And it's a once in a lifetime, and now it's going to be a twice in a lifetime experience,” said Dr. Yano.
The scholarship dinner will be held at the Hilton Hawaiian Village.
It’s a private function with 1,500 people expected to attend.
Stay tuned to KHON2 News Hawaii at Five and Six for the latest coverage of the Imperial Visit.
