The ways of a Geisha

***You can begin by listening to this, it is a twist to the typical music found here***
***Or if you prefer to listen to traditional Geisha music, go ahead***

Hello!! I'm very excited! I am profoundly interested in Japanese culture but I don't know why I'm writing this entry with utmost motivation x)

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think about "Geisha"? Beautiful, white, mysterious, mischievous, exotic...? I've heard many times the idea that people have that Geisha are luxury prostitutes, well, you're wrong!! That's mainly a Western prejudice. If you had that in mind, your image of Geisha will change after this.

Recently, I read Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, thanks to my friend Petra who lent it to me, and although the theme it's depicted quite fantastically there I still found it fascinating. From there I started my research on more Geisha themed books, and found some that are more accurate ones.

So this post is going to be all about Geisha things, it's quite long, but I hope you don't find that discouraging. (That's because I've spent a big amount of time with it. Although I mainly write all of this for my own pleasure I try to bring you quality content and elaborate it well making sure I include what I find personally find interesting. I won't add information just because it's there, you can clearly search for such things and if that were the case I would just link you to the Wikipedia page. I also won't talk about things I am not knowledgable about, before posting something I make sure I fully understand what I am talking about, so usually there are days of reading and thinking behind these extra long posts. I hope you can appreciate that).

 And I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I do writing it!

Let's go!

(Before starting: I'm no expert at anything)

Glossary:

• Danna: A danna is similar to a husband to a geisha without marrying her.

• Ekubo: This is an exotic sweet-rice cake that an apprentice geisha gives to men before her mizuage ritual.

• Ge-iko: This is another term for a geisha which means “arts-child”.

• Mizuage: This ritual is the coming-of-age ceremony of an apprentice geisha before entering womanhood.

• Odoriko: This term means “dancing girls”.

• Okiya: A house where a geisha lives during the length of her contract. 

• Gion: Is a district of Kyoto in which Geisha activity usually takes place. Gion Geisha are called Geiko.

***Play this***

An introduction

Geisha are traditional Japanese female entertainers  and whose skills include performing various Japanese arts such as classical music, dance, games and conversation, mainly to entertain male customers. Basically, they are the origin of hostesses these days. They are performers.

Geisha like all Japanese nouns, has no distinct singular or plural variants. The word consists of two kanji, 芸 (gei) meaning "art" and 者 (sha) meaning "person" or "doer". The most literal translation of geisha into English would be "artist," "performing artist," or "artisan." Another name for geisha is geiko (芸子), which is usually used to refer to geisha from western Japan, which includes Kyoto.

This is a willow, if you were wondering (I was!)
source for the introduction

Apprentice geisha are called maiko (舞子 or 舞妓), (literally "dance child") or hangyoku (半玉), "half-jewel" (meaning that they are paid half of the wage of a full geisha),or by the more generic term o-shaku (御酌), literally "one who pours (alcohol)". The white make-up and elaborate kimono and hair of a maiko is the popular image held of geisha. A woman entering the geisha community does not have to begin as a maiko, having the opportunity to begin her career as a full geisha. Either way, however, usually a year's training is involved before debuting either as a maiko or as a geisha. A woman above 21 is considered too old to be a maiko and becomes a full geisha upon her initiation into the geisha community. However, those who do go through the maiko stage can enjoy more prestige later in their professional lives.

The only modern maiko that can apprentice before the age of eighteen are in Kyoto. On average, Tokyo maiko (who typically begin at 18) are slightly older than their Kyoto counterparts (who usually start at 15). Historically, geisha often began the earliest stages of their training at a very young age, sometimes as early as at 3 or 5 years. The early shikomi (servant) and minarai (watching apprentice) stages of geisha training lasted years, which is significantly longer than in contemporary times.

It is still said that geisha inhabit a separate reality which they call the karyūkai or "the flower and willow world." Before they disappeared the courtesans were the colorful "flowers" and the geisha the "willows" because of their subtlety, strength, and grace.

What are the origins of Geisha?

The origins of the geisha are to be found in the pleasure quarters in Japan; prostitution was legal early in the 19th century and there were several women known as odoriko, “dancing girls”, who were trained in the art of dancing. Because of their financial difficulties they were dependent on selling their body illegally because they did not want to be defined as such and thus they were not officially known as prostitutes. The government discovered this illegal activity and they were required to obtain a license if they wished to continue working as a prostitute. The license they obtained branded them as prostitutes and this term was not acceptable because they did not see themselves as prostitutes; instead, they referred to themselves as ge-iko which means “arts-child” (Gallagher 110). They started their motto in the nineteenth century, which was: ′′We sell art, not bodies′′ (Gallagher 114).

Burt Glinn- Two apprentice Geisha on their way to evening appointments in Kyoto. Japan, 1961

The life of a geisha is quite expensive: the make-up, luxurious kimonos, lavish accessories and financially providing for the okiya. The only income a geisha could earn at that time was payment from entertaining at tea-parties (geisha’s entertaining men) or occasionally prostituting, but this small income would not be enough to cover all expenses, which is why an income from a danna would make it easier to maintain their luxurious lifestyle. A geisha could have more than one danna if she or her Mother wishes in order to bring in more money to the okiya house. At some occasions, she could have sleepovers at teahouses and occasionally they would have intercourse with the men at the party, even though she was mistress to another man (Gallagher 114-115).

The era of geishas began in the mid-1800s, and before World War II, the profession was incredibly admired and the number of geishas was up to 80 000 in 1920. Today in modern Japan, there are approximately 5,000 geishas left. The war’s end had devastating consequences on their life; one of them was the closing of numerous of okiya houses and the girls had to work in factories to survive. Due to the war, prostitutes started to call themselves geishas to the Americans and their reputation was lost. They never recovered after the war since the damages were heavy. 

So in short, the origin of Geisha probably was the beginning of the Edo Period and the development of post road towns that gave way for the geisha.  Many people traveled along these post roads which connected Kyoto with Edo (old name for Tokyo).  After a long day of walking travelers would stay at inns and the geisha would serve the customer and entertain them. As time went by the quality of the entertainment became more refined and in demand therefore becoming a true profession which even attracted the attention of the men of the superior spheres of power.

What is it like to spend an evening with a geisha?

First of all, I would say expensive. Also exclusive and special.

Geisha means artist or entertainer if you prefer a more coarse translation. Her main art is conversation, so unless you're fluent in Japanese, a night with her will be a waste of your money and her talent (although I guess there should be some Geisha who speak English? I've no idea sorry).

There are different price points. There are certain bars who will call Geisha or Maiko to give you some company (not sexual!) But if you want a real experience you will most likely want to get some friends together for a proper banquet. Here you will be entertained at a tea house (keep in mind, with the vast majority of them you will have to be invited, so you need to gain an aquantiship with either a Maiko or a Geiko if you are in Kyoto, if you were in Tokyo, you would be looking for Hangyoku or a Geisha). Anyway, the night will go something like this; you will get some sake, and you will be able to be served by the Maiko (Most likely because the Geiko will come later if you pay a bit more) You will be able to hold a conversation with the Maiko entertaining you. Then you will get food along with conversing with the Maiko. I'm not sure if this happens during or after you eat, but the Maiko will perform a dance with music. More food and drinks, and then you will be able to play games with the Maiko or Geiko if she has joined the party. The entire ordeal will last an hour or two and will cost about $200 dollars per hour, I believe. Of course prices are depending and it's very rude to actually bring them up. Normally you won't be charged on the spot, but rather a bill will be sent to you to pay.

What is the difference between geisha and oiran?

Oiran 花魁 was a name given to a prostitute that was very popular and highly regarded, mostly for her beauty, in the brothels of Yoshiwara in Edo (Tokyo). (In the Edo period, prostitution conducted in specified areas called yuukaku 遊郭 like Yoshiwara was legal.) A regular Yoshiwara prostitute was called a yuujo (遊女) which means 'play woman'*. An oiran was like the pinup girl of Edo - many of the 'bijin-ga' (pictures of beautiful women) that exist as woodcut prints are of oiran. 

There are no oiran left in modern Japan since prostitution is illegal now. (There are some borderline almost-prostitution businesses around, but the women who work in them are not called oiran or yuujo.) 

A geisha 芸者, geiko 芸子 or geiki 芸妓 was/is a trained entertainer, who is very skilled in song, dance, playing an instrument and otherwise entertaining guests. They were not primarily prostitutes, although some did sleep with clients and many 'successfully' retired by becoming the mistress of a client, or sponsored by one or more, and so forth. There were also male geisha in the Edo period. 

A tayuu 太夫 was the name used especially in Kyoto and Osaka for highly lauded and popular geiko and yuujo (they actually have the same rank as a samurai). Early on the term was used for similarly ranked women in Edo too, but oiran became more widely used. 

(The term 太夫 is also used in many other contexts, for men and women. Basically it means the best or most respected in a certain field, such as in noh theater.)

*Other types of prostitutes had other names.

The many patters of a kimono and its obi are fascinating

Let's look at it this way:

Firstly geisha are divided into 3 groups

1.  Commonly known geisha or in their local area of Kyoto referred to as Geiko Han 
2.  Maiko San or Maiko Han in Kyoto 
3. Oiran

The first two are differentiated by age only. A Maiko is an apprentice Geiko and they wear the white face make up and their kimono and Obi are more elaborate. The sleeves are longer known as furi sode (Furi means to wave and sode means sleeve).

Their Obi are much longer, reaching down to almost their feet. They used to be recruited at a very young age such as 15 or so and trained to be a Geiko. 

Due to recent labour laws in Japan it's very difficult to recruit new Geiko so their numbers are dwindling. 

Clean and clear face, the natural beauty of a Geisha!

Once a maiko has completed her training she becomes a Geiko and no longer wears the white face makeup but can on occasion. Her kimono is much simpler with shorter sleeves and simple Obi.





There are geisha in Tokyo but they don't go through the same rigorous training and their establishments are less strict about allowing entry to first timers. 

Geiko are trained in a number of areas least of which are politics, economics, the traditional instrument they play: the okoto.

They are trained so in order to have stimulating conversations with their clientele.  

Such clientele are often very well respected members of society and there is an esteem associated with going to a geisha tea house or establishment. 

Contrary to popular belief, Geisha or Geiko never ever perform sexual acts with their clientele. They never exchange private information and you never meet them in a private setting outside of their work. Their sole function is to entertain guests with witty banter.

Learn how to differentiate maiko and geisha easily with this cute picture! (Click to make it big)

Which brings me to the last type. The oiran or the courtesan. In contrast to the other two types, the oiran actually did perform sexual acts but don't get me wrong, only the oiran was able to choose her clients. The oiran reigned supreme amongst the Geikos and Maikos of old Kyoto. There have never been oiran in Tokyo. 

An oiran's kimono was extremely elaborate and her Obi was tied at the front to make sex easier as she didn't crush it when lying back. 

Her geta or shoes were very tall about twice the height of normal Geiko shoes. About 15-20 cm in height. 

Her kimono was especially long and dragged on the ground which meant she had to walk and kick her feet out slightly. This meant that she had a very distinctive swooshing style of gait which was another very attractive point. 

However oirans were so elite and expensive that only the highest ranking nobles or members of the imperial family could afford them. There are currently only three remaining in all of Japan. 

Here is an oiran being escorted

What does it take to become a Geisha?

Not all of them, but actually, geisha are studying all their lives. They can begin their learning at the age of 3 years old, and three days.

Geisha study the art of dancing, they can perform with a fan or more, dances are usually telling a story, so the geishas are dancing but also interprating a play. (kabuki influence)

Each spring, there was (is) a special dance event, reuniting the most famous and talented geisha of Gion.

Geiko Tsunemono (Shigenoya) source

They also learn to play some instruments: 

The shamisen, is a three strings little guitar made with taut dog or cat skin; a flute; two or three types of drums- a ko-tsuzumi, a small shouder drum and a taiko, a large floor one.

Geisha study the traditonal music, not only the instruments but the vocals too.

They have to know how to perform the tea ceremony (way of tea), involving the presentation and preparation of matcha green tea.

At the beginning of their training, they have to accomplish a lot of chores and they are serving other geisha. 

If they are satisfaying the okiya, they become minarais, can go to school, and are no longer doing the housework.

Between the age of 15-20, minarais are maikos, apprentice geishas.

This is usually at this period that the mizuage takes place (ceremony where the maiko is selling (offering) his virginity).

Then after a lot of practices, some ceremonies (sister ceremony, mizuage) and learning the Kyoto dialect, the maikos will be geishas.

Some traits of a Geisha

Well, Geisha is not about being static like having good genes or putting the right makeup. It is about dynamic, i.e:

• Dress and general attitude. You would not imagine a geisha to be easy-going like other girls. At all points her movements are controlled and beautiful. 
• It is about classical music, dance and games. Those arts, especially classical music (Japanese) require deep investment on your side. 
• It is about being a good conversationalist. This can be most helpful. Learning some new interesting ways beyond the "awesome" and stuff like that is probably a very good thing.

I reccommend you watch this short video:

Fukunae-san is a maiko and I like how she is also "a normal girl". Footage like this helps to make this character something more approachable and less "mystical".

***Some light music***
***Or maybe you're in for some more """badass""" twist like moi?***

Is Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha culturally accurate?

Okay, so before reading the book I thought the story happened for real and I found it breathtaking, thing is, it didn't.

It takes years of training to become a Geisha, and for the pre-WW2 period, the novel Memoirs of a Geisha gives a pretty good view of the topic.  There are some small mistakes (for example when they went to a sumo match) but overall it felt fairly accurate. 

Nevertheless, not only was the book historically and culturally inaccurate, Mineko Iwasaki, the woman whose life story the book was based on, sued the author because she only allowed him to interview her with the guarantee that she will remain anonymous and that her personal life story will remain private. He broke it by thanking her in the book acknowledgement and using her personal story as the basis of the book falsely. 

Don't get me wrong though, in spite of everything, I still enjoyed the book very much. I personally liked how I got to learn specific terms like geta and zori to recall the simplest ones (they are those traditional shoes that look a bit like flip-flops, geta are the high and wooden and zori are low and can be straw). It had been a while until I really enjoyed a book as much as I enjoyed reading this one! I was hooked, it's just that I consider it Disney style fantasy.

Now, what about the film?

I'm sure most of you found the film adaptation of the book beautiful, I know I did! I've watched it many times and I would watch it again, honestly, I love it, it's like a fairytale, but once you get further into knowledge you see that it is not at all accurate, and was even received with controversy in, guess what, Japan!! Why? Because of Hollywood's "I'm in for the money" attitude which can be perceived in countless movies.

Makiko Itoh puts it clear and bluntly (all the cursive):

Memoirs of a Geisha was released in Japan with the title Sayuri, spelled out like that - not in katakana and not translated to Japanese. This is the DVD cover. I'll refer to the movie as Sayuri below since it's shorter. 

Reception to Sayuri was very mixed, and I think it's safe to say it was mainly negative. Since the objection that got all the press in the U.S. at the time was the casting of Chinese/non-Japanese Asian actresses in key roles, including Ziyi Zhang in the lead role, you might assume that that was the main objection in Japan too. But actually, casting was not the main issue at all. Ziyi Zhang, Michelle Yeoh etc. were major international film stars at the time Sayuri was released, each with a sizeable fanbase in Japan. And plenty of Japanese actors were cast, e.g. Ken Watanabe, Koji Yakusho, Kaori Momoi, etc. (Kaori Momoi, who played the Mother, has been a major film star in Japan for decades, though she's not known much in the west.) I personally thought the acting itself, given the material, was acceptable. Ziyi Zhang was breathtakingly beautiful. 

The main objection to Sayuri was the utter and almost total disregard for Japanese tradition, especially when it comes the world of geiko (geisha) in Kyoto (= Miyako). Any movie is going to have a certain amount of fictionalizing, but this really did a number. It made the geiko look like easy prostitutes and catfighting bitches, who went around half-dressed in a single layer of kimono on the street. The world of geiko is very secretive and complicated, so I cannot even pretend to know much about it, but it is a very discreet one with many rules of conduct, and if a geiko or maiko (geiko in training) would have acted remotely like the way the ones in Sayuri did, they would have been kicked out of their 'house' immediately, and sent home if they had one to go home to. Or - they might have ended up as real prostitutes (jorou) after all. The details such as the hairstyles, the clothes, and that kungfu-flying-dragon-type dance (because like, all Asian dances are the same, amirite?) were really infuriating. 

It's not just the things pertaining the the world of geiko that rankled. Unlike the people in charge of The Last Samurai, Shogun, or even Kill Bill, the people in charge of this movie didn't seem to have any kind of regard, or interest, in 'real' Japanese culture in any shape or form. Perhaps they thought they were doing a jazzed up variation on Madame Butterfly? 

I wrote a review of this movie shortly after it came out, in early 2006, on the IMDB site. I'll quote a bit from that: 

A small detail that typifies the kind of lack of sensitivity [of the movie's creators]  is a scene where Mameha rings a bell that hangs at the door of the house where Sayuri lives, on a snowy winter day. The bell she's ringing is a fuurin （風鈴), or wind chime - that is only hung outside houses in Japan in the summer!. People in traditional Japanese homes didn't have doorbells - they just opened the door and announced themselves. You may think this is such a trivial detail, but I would equate this to a movie made about America where a Christmas wreath is hanging on the door in July, and someone knocks it against the door like a door knocker! 

I think this rather cavalier attitude towards the culture they are trying to portray really comes out in the attitudes and the portrayals of people and situations too. 

There were a few Japanese people who liked it or said 'it wasn't so bad'. But by and large these people seem to have such low expectations when it comes to any non-Japanese person's ability to understand or appreciate anything about Japan or Japanese culture, that they think it's useless to complain about their lack of understanding. In a way, you could call these people more xenophobic than the ones who expect non-Japanese people to at least have some respect for the culture. 

It is a very pretty movie to look at. But, I personally can't stand it,  and will most likely never see it again unless I was trying to punish  myself or someone was going to pay me $100 to do so. Make that $1000. And, while I liked Chicago (the movie) well enough, I will never willingly go to a Rob Marshall directed movie again. I disliked it that much. 

The Orient as an antithesis to the West

Orientalism recognizes the Orient as an antithesis to the West. If the West is advanced, clean, pretty, and sophisticated, then the Orient must be backward, dirty, ugly, and simple. In their book and movie, respectively, Golden and Marshall have planted the colonial seeds that corroborate the Orient as the antithesis of the West. Memoirs of a Geisha reinforces undesirable stereotypes of the Japanese people and culture. When the Orient is engineered by the West and devised as its antithesis, then the Eastern culture will be misrepresented. Golden and Marshall show the Japanese to be silent, stiffly polite individuals, who eat exotic food and slurp noodles. Golden and Marshall also perpetuate stereotypes about geisha as sexually submissive women who aspire to become mistresses, bathe with strange men, rest their necks on special pillows to maintain their hairstyles, play shamisen (musical instrument) made from virgin kittens, and wear facial powder made from a nightingale’s droppings. These misrepresentations reinforce the idea of Japanese culture and geisha as exotic, backward, irrational, dirty, profane, promiscuous, bizarre, and enigmatic. Since Golden’s and Marshall’s target audiences were Westerners, the cultural misrepresentation and misinformation present in Geisha might not have been noticeable to most viewers. 

Just to cite a couple of divergencies:

Golden’s choice of a fishing village as the setting for “Sayuri’s” childhood was an ideal Orientalist device, playing off the idea of “fish” and the “fishy smell” as stereotypical of Japanese. “Sayuri’s” family was described as poor, yet they could afford a doctor to make house calls. Golden included as many bathing scenes as possible, so this poor family had a private, indoor bath in which they bathed the dying mother. Before World War II, only well-to-do Japanese families had a bath at home. To further illustrate how poor her family was, however, Golden describes the daughters’ unruly hair. In the opening scene of the movie, a large, horse- drawn wagon spirits the girl away from her home to be sold in the city as a geisha. Such a wide vehicle running along a narrow, meandering, coastal fishing-village path in 1928 Japan is an unthinkable anachronism. The wild wagon ride, however, does evoke nostalgia for a John Wayne movie of the 1930s. The West’s familiarity with a horse-drawn wagon makes sense to the audience.
Marshall felt present-day Kyoto was too modern, so he created a geisha district on a movie set in Southern California, complete with tile-roofed houses, wooden bridges, and cobblestone streets (Shoji, 2005). Such tall, tile-roofed structures in congested neighborhoods do not resemble 1930s Kyoto, but rather appear similar to the scenes of congested Beijing in the movie The Last Emperor. In addition, the movie shows a whorehouse in a dark street, as the horse-drawn wagon passes, giving way to a teahouse. Marshall visually sets up the teahouse as an extension of the whorehouse. 

Random but this is maiko Hinayuu and a fox mask! So cute and casual :3

The maiko Kanako of Miyagawacho protects her skin with her uchiwa. Notice that she is now a second year maiko! Yay! Source

To finish with, I would like to recommend a couple of books in case you are interested in reading about Geisha lives, but without the idyllic facade. 
Geisha of Gion or Geisha: A Life by Mineko Iwasaki: after Memoirs of a Geisha the actual Geisha who inspired the story was kind of upset with the result and decided to write her experiences as they were, no fantasy, no idealism, still intense.

Autobiography of a Geisha by Sayo Masuda is different from the Geisha we may picture. Your image of geisha is probably one of a world of glamour–high-status, highly-trained women existing in a world of glitter and flash, dealing with celebrities, scientists, movie stars of the stage and screen, mistresses of their chosen arts, and honored for their talents.

While this may be true of Kyoto geisha, this experience is not representative of all geisha, or even most geisha, as Sayo Masuda's book demonstrates clearly. Masuda was a hot-springs geisha, sold into servitude at the age of twelve, to a place as different from the glamor centers of Kyoto as it is possible to get. Though she was trained in shamisen and dance, the sexual aspect of her profession was at least as important as the artistic aspect, and she routinely met with cruelty, poverty and hunger.

I won't say this book shows what the life of a geisha was "really" like–Mineko's autobiography demonstrates that the glamor world of Kyoto was a real one. But it was not the only one, or even the majority one, and for a more comprehensive view of a different kind of geisha, this book here is indispensible. If Kyoto is all you know of the "flower and willow world," I recommend that you pick up Sayo Masuda's work, and expand your horizons.


Media wise, I am aware of two documentaries called Geisha Girl (which is a BBC TV documentary) and The Secret Lives of Geisha. I haven't watched them myself yetso I can't give you an opinion on them. Have you watched any?

By the way, I found this very interesting website by the first Western Geisha, Sayuki, check it out! http://www.sayuki.net

Are you maybe interested in meeting a Geisha? They are actually a pretty rare sight, but this may give you some tips if you're visiting Kyoto: http://us.jnto.go.jp/blog/how-to-meet-with-a-geisha-in-kyoto/

If you wish to dig deeper into the exact differences between the book by Golden and the film and reality, this essay is good for that, I had a great time reading it: http://www.globalmediajournal.com/open-access/orientalism-and-the-binary-of-fact-and-fiction-in-memoirs-of-a-geisha.pdf


That's all I wanted to say for now! Thank you so much for reading :3 Hope this shed some light into your Geisha department.


See you!



B.

Sources:

Gallagher, John. Geisha: A Unique World of Tradition, Elegance, and Art. London: PRC, 2003.

http://www.quora.com/How-do-Japanese-people-feel-about-the-movie-Memoirs-of-a-Geisha

http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-differences-between-geishas-and-oirans

I made a bad Geisha drawing back in the day x)