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Prurient
Interest
By: Yuki Allyson
Honjo
Outside of Japan, geisha have never failed to fascinate. Arthur
Golden's novel, Memoirs of a Geisha, has been a sensation
in the US and UK. Not only dominating the best seller's list, the
book inspired a mania for all things geisha. Rumors spread of a
Steven Speilberg movie version with Madonna as its star. The
models of Paris and Milan pranced down runways in fantasy outfits
resembling kimonos and obis. Golden even had his own Absolute Vodka
advertisement ("Absolute Golden") featuring a fictional geisha.
Japan usually has a voracious appetite for foreign books ranging
from Tom Clancy to the latest Booker shortlist. With Memoirs
of a Geisha, Japanese readers remained unimpressed: Golden's
book remained untranslated for years.
The western fascination with geisha lies in the imagined concept
of a young girl trained from pubescence for the express purpose
of pleasure. Their professional identity is to be pleasing in both
skills and comportment, even at high emotional and pecuniary cost
to the geisha. As almost every Kyoto tourist brochure will state,
geisha are not prostitutes, but skilled performers of the arts.
Through the ages they have been part of the "floating world" of
pleasure and separate from public and family life. In the past,
captains of industry, the intelligentsia (such as Junichiro Tanizaki),
and politicians have had the power and means to buy a geisha's time,
and perhaps, but not always, her affection. Men went to geisha to
enjoy expert hospitality and the tantalizing possibility of sex.
It is also a world with stage and backstage: the alluring professional
that the client sees is different from her day-to-day identity and
life. Geisha are created and trained, and Lesley Downer's book,
Geisha: The Secret History of a Vanishing World, does an
excellent job showing the reader both worlds. "The Secret History"
is an apt, though perhaps overly dramatic, title. For years, the
geisha have not allowed reporters or researchers into their back
stage world; allowing them access would destroy some of their power
and allure, much like a magician allowing the audience to see his
tricks.
"Fuji-yama",
sakura blossoms and the "gee-shya-girls" are icons of
Japan, and as recognizable as the red and white hinomaru flag. But
are these images truly representative of Japanese culture and society?
The flower and willow world bespeaks of privilege and exclusivity;
most ordinary Japanese never have the chance to meet a geisha, let
alone be entertained by one.
Yet
the demand for geisha is dwindling and thus the geisha have become
more eager to tell their stories before they vanished altogether.
Fortunate indeed that Downer was on hand at record the geisha's
stories and experiences. This by no means an easy task; Downer had
to live within the "flower and willow" world and learn its often
arcane and the obscure rules and etiquette to gain the geishas'
trust. Her journalist background and fluency in Japanese is to her
credit: she interviewed wide variety of people from wig setters,
dancing and music teachers, young apprentice geisha (maiko) in training,
to "golf geisha" (geisha who will charm a client with conversation
on the links) and ancient grand dames of the geisha world-in short,
all the stage hands behind the glamour.
Downer's book is divided into two main parts: in the first, she
teases a thread of narrative from the geisha's rather murky history
as prostitutes, courtesans, and performers. She blends together
themes from history and literature to give a solid overview on the
present geisha system.
One particularly intriguing section was Downer's coverage of the
first geisha, the taiko-mochi (literally, drum carrier), who were
male. The term "geisha" (literally, arts person) originally referred
to these men. Female geisha from Kyoto are sometime called "geiko"
or "arts child." Much like their female counterparts, they charmed
and pleased their (male) clients with banter, performances, and
sly sexual innuendo. She interviewed one of Japan's half dozen living
taiko-mochi, Shinchiko, and describes his performances and experiences.
In this way, Downer pulls historical detail into the present and
allows the reader an intimate peek into this world.
This is particularly evident in the second, and by far the more
interesting, half of the book, Downer examines how geisha live in
the present. Fewer women wish to become geisha, and for those that
do, their lives are quite different from the lives of geisha fifty
years ago. In the past, young girls as young as five or six were
sold into geisha houses in an effort to stave off poverty: they
usually worked as maids until they came of age. The system swept
the girls into higher and higher levels of debt for their training
and maintenance. Practices such as mizuage (a practice in which
a young apprentice geisha's virginity is sold, at a premium, to
a client) to help alleviate their debt are no longer performed.
Although their lives could not be described as easy, geisha lifestyles
have changed substantially. Women now become geisha or maiko out
of choice at a much later age (usually the late teens), often with
parental disapproval. Many leave the industry as maiko to marry,
have children, and have a "normal" life. To other women in the flower
and willow world, being a geisha is part of a rewarding, though
somewhat unusual, job, but not a total lifetime commitment. With
demand dwindling, geisha find that they must balance the traditional
and the modern to survive. For example, Kioto, a Kyoto geisha, had
her own website.
Clients are changing as well. Fewer men want the ritual and cost
of entertaining with geisha. Becoming a geisha's patron ("danna"
or husband) is a substantial financial undertaking. He not only
has to maintain the geisha, he has to pay for her kimonos, accessories,
and her training-all of which run into tens of millions of yen.
The games, music, and dancing of geisha require connoisseurship--
far easier to appreciate the charms of snack hostesses. Social structures
are changing as well: wives are less willing to accept their husbands
spending time and money on a geisha.
For years, travel posters advertising Japan featured a beautifully
coiffed "geisha" (in reality a maiko) peering coyly under a red
paper umbrella. "Fuji-yama", sakura blossoms and the "gee-shya-girls"
are icons of Japan, and as recognizable as the red and white hinomaru
flag. But are these images truly representative of Japanese culture
and society? The flower and willow world bespeaks of privilege and
exclusivity; most ordinary Japanese never have the chance to meet
a geisha, let alone be entertained by one. Yet, they have remained
a vivid symbol of Japan. Although the interest that non-Japanese
have focused on geisha has bordered on the prurient, Downer has
thoughtfully portrayed the complexities and subtleties of this world.
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"Fuji-yama",
sakura blossoms and the "gee-shya-girls" are icons of
Japan, and as recognizable as the red and white hinomaru flag. But
are these images truly representative of Japanese culture and society?
The flower and willow world bespeaks of privilege and exclusivity;
most ordinary Japanese never have the chance to meet a geisha, let
alone be entertained by one.
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