Manual Geisha

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Geisha (芸者) or geigi (芸妓) are traditional female Japanese entertainers. They are skilled at different Japanese arts, like playing classical Japanese music,  ‎History · ‎Modern geisha · ‎Training · ‎The art of geisha and Iki.
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With carnal satisfaction guaranteed, the merchants looked for other forms of entertainment. The courtesans of the pleasure quarters were trained in various arts: music, dance and poetry as well as other forms of court entertainment that up until that time had been known only to the nobility. As times changed so did the tastes of the customers; the formality and expense involved meant only the elite were able to patronize the Tayu the top courtesans. With the change in attitudes came a new type of entertainer.

It was in the early 's when the first male-geisha appeared on the scene.


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However, it was not long before some entrepreneurial female entertainers followed suit and the first women geisha, as we know them today, made their debut. Their role was simple:. Courtesan entertainment peaked in the midth century and from then on the geisha would become the most skilled entertainers in the 'floating world' of the pleasure quarters. Suddenly hanamachi geisha quarters began appearing all over Japan, reaching their peak in the early s. In modern times to experience authentic traditional geisha entertainment one must go to the ancient capital, Kyoto.

Geisha - New World Encyclopedia

Some may argue that Tokyo geisha still retain some of the charm of the past but the buildings and attire of the geisha in Tokyo cannot be compared to the geiko Kyoto term for geisha of Kyoto. In Kyoto's five hanamachi Gion Kobu, Gion Higashi, Kamishichiken , Miyagawacho and Pontocho , the geiko and their apprentices the maiko entertain their customers in the traditional ochaya teahouses in the same kimono-clad fashion as they have done since the eighteenth century. Although numbers are declining, the modern geiko still practices her arts with the same dedication as her fore-sisters did, always trying to add to her repertoire of gei arts.

Competition with art-oriented hostess bars, karaoke and a waning economy makes mere survival a challenge for newcomers to the trade. Many find the lifestyle and schedule too demanding and eventually leave the hanamachi for a less disciplined line of work. The transition of the geiko from fashion innovator to cultural curator has raised the question of the very future of the hanamachi.

Everything you’ve wanted to know about the history of geisha and maiko

Admittedly, her hand has been forced, first by the success of Arthur Golden's bestselling novel Memoirs of a Geisha, and now by the film version, which opens in the US this Friday and in the UK in January. Together they have generated unprecedented interest in the semi-secretive existence of the geisha, and, according to the women themselves, reinforced several cliches.

Few of Kyoto's geisha have read Golden's book, but almost all are familiar with the fictional story of Sayuri Nitta, played by Zhang Ziyi, the daughter of a fisherman who is sold to a Kyoto teahouse as a child and becomes one of the most coveted geisha of her generation. Disturbed that their rarefied existence was about to be given the Hollywood treatment, the proprietors of many teahouses in Gion, the Kyoto geisha district in which Golden's novel is set, refused to cooperate with director Rob Marshall and his crew.

The film contains its share of inaccuracies, from the hair scraped back , makeup not white enough, apparently so as not to put off US audiences , street scenes far too gaudy for s Kyoto to a dance sequence where the women, hair hanging loose, perform in a way one Japanese blogger said would look more at home in an LA strip club.

History of Geisha

But it is the film's portrayal of the geisha lifestyle that worries Sayuri's modern, real-life counterparts. In the film she is bullied relentlessly by her rival Hatsumomo Gong Li , and falls in love with a patron known only as the Chairman Ken Watanabe. Then there is reference to mizuage, the practice of wealthy men attempting to outbid each other to deflower their favourite geisha and become her sole patron, or danna.

It might make the film more interesting, but there are lots of sides to our life that are quite mundane. Umechika's life is far from mundane. She can barely find the time to go shopping with friends - one of her rare brushes with conventional modern life - let alone conduct a love affair. Instead she fills her days learning the arts she is expected to have mastered by the time she completes her apprenticeship: calligraphy, flower arrangement, tea ceremony, a variety of traditional musical instruments, song and dance.

Her evenings are then spent entertaining at teahouses. Umechika concedes mizuage may not have been consigned to the past altogether, but insists it is almost unheard of today. She has favourite guests but there is no Chairman in her life. I would have to think about it.

Taking a patron has its benefits, as they are expected not only to pay to be entertained regularly - a couple of hours in a teahouse costs several hundred pounds - but also to act as financial benefactors, which is useful for the necessary collection of several dozen kimonos that can cost tens of thousands of pounds. For the fictional Sayuri Nitta, becoming a geisha was an enforced route out of poverty that became a professional calling.

In the s there were an estimated geisha working in the ochaya teahouses of Gion, the most famous geisha district of Kyoto. Now the number is closer to In the postwar years the profession went through a slump when more women felt being adopted by a teahouse and effectively leaving their families behind for good was a commitment too far.

Everything You Need to Know About Geisha, Geiko, and Maiko

But geisha life is witnessing a modest revival, according to Canadian-born Peter MacIntosh, a longtime resident of Kyoto who spends a large portion of his income in teahouses. Fifteen-year-old Shinaka, who comes from Fukuoka, a city on Japan's main island of Kyushu, has only just started her training. She says she is driven by a desire to learn the arts of the geisha, not by the prospect of meeting a wealthy suitor: "I haven't given it a second's thought.


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Today she is paying a weekly visit to Tatsuo Ishihara, one of only five geisha hairdressers in Kyoto, and the only man. Ishihara moves nimbly around his cramped salon, waxing, pressing, tying, crafting and finally teasing Shinaka's hair into just the right shape. After 22 years as a geisha hairdresser, the year-old can complete the task in minutes, although he admits it once took him more than two hours and frequently left him drenched in sweat.

Shinaka, who left school earlier this year, will not be back for at least another week: geisha and maiko sleep on their sides, balancing their heads on a takamakura, a specially shaped hard, high pillow that supports their neck but leaves their hair untouched. After years of having their hair pulled and scraped into shape, many women develop a tiny bald spot referred to as their "badge of honour".