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Volume 13, Issue #1. Published on November 3, 2004
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Memoirs of a Geisha:
Dispelling Preconceptions of the Japanese Geisha
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Donna Taketa
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Who are the geisha?
They're commonly recognized as beautiful Japanese women with stylized white faces, dressed in exquisitely patterned kimonos, complete with stilted wooden sandals. Many people irresponsibly characterize geisha as prostitutes; however, this labeling is false and degrading.
Arthur Golden’s best selling novel, Memoirs of a Geisha, may have arguably further obscured, rather than clarified, the role of the geisha in post-modern Japan.
The silver-screen adaptation of Golden's novel began filming last month on location in Los Angeles and Japan. Produced in conjunction by Columbia Pictures and DreamWorks Films, and directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago), the film is sure to be rigorously advertised prior to its release in fall 2005.
The period drama is based on the fictional accounts of Suyuki (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon's Zhang Ziyi), a peasant girl who is taken in by an okiya (geisha house/employer) and rises to become a renowned geisha. The story also delves into Suyuki’s romantic attachment to one of her most prominent patrons (Oscar nominee Ken Watanabe of The Last Samurai) and the turmoil that follows.
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Photo courtesy of Vintage Books
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The film adaptation of Memoirs of a Geisha will hit theatres in 2005
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Unfortunately the novel Memoirs of a Geisha adopts a rather narrow and often fabricated view of the geisha profession. The book focuses on sexually sensationalizing the profession by unjustly portraying geisha as wantonly promiscuous. If the movie follows suit, audiences will most likely regard geisha as high-scale prostitutes. Therefore, before the American public views a potentially problematic theme, it would be timely to clarify the geisha profession.
Geisha are artistically trained and accomplished entertainers. The profession began hundreds of years ago in the urban districts of Japan. Raised from girlhood by the okiya, a novice is rigorously immersed in literature, history, music and the arts to reflect tact, poise and grace with every movement or word. Present-day novices are often instructed in classical and contemporary works, including the traditions and languages of many cultures.
Geisha, meaning artists, are scrupulously trained in the arts of dance, singing, calligraphy, and playing string instruments such as the koto and shamisen.
Geisha, a Life, reveals the intricacies and politics of the profession as experienced and recorded by famed geisha Mineko Iwasaki during the 1960s and 1970s. A star of her time, Iwasaki wished to share her story as, “No woman in the three hundred-year history of the kayakai has ever come forward…we have been constrained by unwritten rules not to do so, by the robes of tradition, and by the sanctity of our exclusive calling.”
Women of art and dance, geisha flit between exclusive banquets, often three to four a night. They engage guests in conversation and amusement by performing from their diverse repertoire of accomplishments. Geisha are engaged for entertainment and to heighten social prestige. A geisha is to converse knowledgably and graciously with the guest of honor, even if she is discomforted by circumstances. A geisha’s outward demeanor is always gracious. “Sublimating one’s personal likes and dislikes under a veneer of gentility is one of the fundamental challenges of the profession,” Iwasaki wrote.
To be entertained by a geisha was, and still is, a great symbol of status in Japan. Men would pay large amounts of money to sponsor and monetarily support the most popular geisha. “In the same way that a patron of the opera does not expect sexual favors from the diva, [they supported geisha] because of the artistic perfection that she embodied and the luster that she lent to his reputation,” Iwasaki wrote.
At times, however, attachments did develop between a geisha and an admiring patron-- resulting in a liaison. “Romantic entanglements happen all the time, some leading to marriage and others to heartache,” Iwasaki wrote.
At the height of her esteem, Iwasaki earned $500,000 a year, furthering the point that, “the notion that geisha perform sexual favors for their clients is ridiculous. With this much income, why would we?”
The geisha profession continues in Japan, however with much less dominance and popularity. An absence of wealthy and artistically appreciative patrons, in combination with a more modern-minded Japan has contributed to its demise. “The thought,” Iwasaki summarized, “that little will remain of the glorious tradition beyond its external forms fills me with sorrow.”
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