Photo/Illutration Kiko Kawashima, now Crown Princess Kiko, and her father Tatsuhiko walk out of their apartment in Tokyo’s Toshima Ward in 1989. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Crown Princess Kiko’s father, Tatsuhiko Kawashima, a professor emeritus at Gakushuin University, died at a Tokyo hospital just before noon on Nov. 4, the Imperial Household Agency announced the same day. He was 81.

Kiko, the wife of Crown Prince Fumihito, visited the hospital that afternoon with her eldest daughter, Mako Komuro, and her second daughter, Princess Kako.

Kawashima had been hospitalized since Oct. 19.

The family and Mako’s husband, Kei, had also visited him at the hospital recently. Mako married Kei Komuro on Oct. 26.

When Kiko married Fumihito in 1990, the Kawashima family was living in a faculty dormitory on the Gakushuin University campus in Tokyo. Kiko attracted a lot of media attention as the “3LDK (apartment with three bedrooms) princess.”

Before Kiko became a member of the imperial family, Kawashima often reminded her of his motto: “Always smile.”

Kawashima obtained degrees at both the University of Tokyo’s Faculty of Economics and its graduate school and continued his studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

He had been a professor of economics at Gakushuin University since 1976.

In 1997, he established “GONGOVA” (Grassroots Overseas Non-Governmental Organization Volunteer Activity).

Every year, he visited mountain villages in northwestern Thailand with university students. He had supported the villagers through his volunteer activities to improve the living environment.

The ongoing activities of GONGOVA are helping students learn and developing mountain villages.

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