On the afternoon of Dec. 12, 1992, Masako Owada, then a 29-year-old diplomat, visited an exhibition by a famous calligrapher at a Tokyo department store and was gazing at the kanji "Toki" ("Time").

Hours earlier, she had accepted Crown Prince Naruhito's marriage proposal.

The calligraphy was written by Toshu Ogawa, 80, from Hokkaido, a former professor at Harvard University who met the future Crown Princess when she was a student at the prestigious U.S. university.