Japanese Geisha Girls

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Definition of Geisha

Geisha ("person of the arts") are traditional Japanese artist-entertainers. The word Geiko is used in Kyoto to describe such persons. Geisha were very common in the 18th and 19th centuries, and are still in existence today, although their numbers are dwindling.

Maiko-san (trainee Geisha), Kyoto

"Geisha," pronounced ("gay-sha") is the most familiar term to English speakers, and the most commonly used within Japan as well, but in the Kansai region the terms Geigi and, for apprentice geisha, "Maiko" have also been used since the Meiji Restoration. Only the term "maiko" is used in Kyoto's districts.

The English pronunciation ("gee-sha") or the phrase "geisha girl," common during the American occupation of Japan, carry connotations of prostitution, as some young women, desperate for money and calling themselves "geisha," sold themselves to American troops during WWII. In China the word for geisha is translated as "yi ji," which sounds like the "ji" in Chinese meaning prostitute. These things have caused further confusion over the true intention of the geisha profession.

Skills

Geisha were traditionally trained from young childhood. Geisha houses often bought young girls from poor families, and took responsibility for raising and training them. During their childhood, apprentice geisha worked first as maids, then as assistants to the house's senior geisha as part of their training and to contribute to the costs of their upkeep and education. This long-held tradition of training still exists in Japan, where a student lives at the home of a master of some art, starting out doing general housework and observing and assisting the master, and eventually moving up to become a master in her own right. This training often lasts for many years.

The course of study traditionally starts from a young age and encompasses a wide variety of arts, including musical instruments (particularly the shamisen), traditional forms of singing, traditional dance, tea ceremony, flower arranging (ikebana), poetry and literature. However, Ikebana is not traditionally encouraged because the role of a geisha is that of a performer. Ikebana has little or no entertainment value. By watching and assisting senior geisha, the students became skilled in the complex traditions surrounding selecting, matching, and wearing precious kimono, in various games and the art of conversation, and in dealing with clients.

Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden To capture the geisha experience in the art of fiction, Golden trained as long and hard as any geisha who must master the arts of music, dance, clever conversation, crafty battle with rival beauties, and cunning seduction of wealthy patrons. After earning degrees in Japanese art and history from Harvard and Columbia--and an M.A. in English--he met a man in Tokyo who was the illegitimate offspring of a renowned businessman and a geisha. This meeting inspired Golden to spend 10 years researching every detail of geisha culture, chiefly relying on the geisha Mineko Iwasaki, who spent years charming the very rich and famous.

The result is a novel with the broad social canvas (and love of coincidence) of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen's intense attention to the nuances of erotic maneuvering. Readers experience the entire life of a geisha, from her origins as an orphaned fishing-village girl in 1929 to her triumphant auction of her mizuage (virginity) for a record price as a teenager to her reminiscent old age as the distinguished mistress of the powerful patron of her dreams. We discover that a geisha is more analogous to a Western "trophy wife" than to a prostitute--and, as in Austen, flat-out prostitution and early death is a woman's alternative to the repressive, arcane system of courtship. In simple, elegant prose, Golden puts us right in the tearoom with the geisha; we are there as she gracefully fights for her life in a social situation where careers are made or destroyed by a witticism, a too-revealing (or not revealing enough) glimpse of flesh under the kimono, or a vicious rumor spread by a rival "as cruel as a spider." (Amazon.com)

Soundtrack from the blockbuster movie Memoirs of a Geisha

Relationships

Geisha are often hired to host parties and gatherings for men, traditionally at tea houses (chaya) or at traditional Japanese restaurants (ryotei). Their time is measured in incense sticks, and is called senkodai ("incense stick fee") or kyokudai ("jewel fee"). Another term used to describe fees is "ohana," or flower fees. The customer makes arrangements through the kenban, or geisha call-office, which keeps each geisha's schedule and makes her appointments both for entertaining and for training.

Strictly speaking, geisha are not prostitutes. Because they entertain men behind closed doors in an exclusive manner, there has been much speculation about the underpinnings of their profession. The confusion that surrounds this issue has been complicated by Japanese prostitutes who wish to co-opt the prestige of the geisha image, and by inaccurate depictions of geisha in Western popular culture. Although an individual geisha may choose to engage in sexual relations with one of her patrons outside of the context of her role as geisha, traditional and codified geisha engagements will never involve sexual activity.

Occasionally, a geisha may choose to take a danna (an old fashioned word for husband), which is typically a wealthy man who has the means to support a geisha mistress. Although a geisha may fall in love with her danna, the affair is customarily contingent upon the danna's ability to financially support the geisha's lifestyle. The traditional conventions and values within such a relationship are very intricate and not well understood, even by many Japanese. Because of this, the true intimate role of the geisha remains the object of much speculation, and often misinterpretation, in Japan as well as abroad.

Modern Geisha

Geisha can still be found living in traditional geisha houses called okiya in areas called hanamachi ("flower towns"), but they are increasingly gaining their independence, especially in larger cities such as Tokyo. The glitzy, high-culture world that geisha are a part of is called karyukai ("flower and willow worlds"). Kyoto is where the tradition is the strongest. Two of the most prestigious and traditional geisha districts in Japan are Kyoto's Gion and Pontocho. The geisha in these districts, who prefer to be called geiko-san, are skilled and dedicated entertainers that are widely thought to be among the finest geisha in all of Japan.

In modern Japan, even in Kyoto, geisha and maiko are now a rare sight - in the 1920s there were over 80,000 geisha in the whole of Japan, but today there are fewer than 1,000. Visitors to Kyoto's Gion district may catch a glimpse of a maiko on her way to work, but they are far more likely to see tourists (both Japanese and foreign) who have paid to be costumed and made up as maiko as part of a souvenir photography session.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Geisha"

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