Geisha: The Flower and Willow World.

Geisha: The Flower and Willow World.

Geisha, the beautiful, delicate and oh so refined ladies, of the “flower towns” or hanamachi of Kyoto, are a fascinating and entrancing aspect of Japanese culture. These extraordinarily accomplished ladies represent traditional Japanese values of femininity at its very highest level; true artists in a female role yet they are often greatly misunderstood outside of Japan.

The origins of geisha are confused and a little hazy. The earliest equivalents to them were the saburuko who were serving girls that entertained at Japanese banquets as early as the seventh century. The emergence of the culture that would eventually see the full flowering of the geisha world came in 794 when the Imperial court moved to the city of Kyoto and a culture of beauty and elegance thrived culminating with the female Shirabyoshi, dancers of rare skill and artistry. These dancers, entertainers and courtesans eventually formed walled in enclosures within the city; pleasure quarters where men would go to be entertained and to seek extra marital sex with the yujo or “play women” In 1617 the Shogun gave exclusive rights to these walled enclaves and made it i*****l to practice prostitution outside of them. Life within these enclosed pleasure districts became an almost separate parallel reality; divorced from the real world beyond; a sort of dream world of beauty, elegance and pleasure. The “Flower and Willow World” had been born.

Highest among the classes of yujo were the Oiran who were a sort of combination of entertainer and prostitute. These were women accomplished in the arts of dance, music and acting. Gradually they began to form a class apart from prostitutes and were esteemed for their artistic and entertainment skills and, although would still be courtesans to rich patrons, would be less available or sought for sexual purposes. These oiran were the predecessors of the later geisha.

The true emergence of the geisha comes in the 18th century by which time the pleasure districts had become much more than a prostitutes’ enclosure and metamorphosised into wildly popular entertainment centres. Oddly enough the first people to use the term geisha were not women but men; male entertainers who put on shows for men waiting to see popular courtesans. Female geisha grew out of the young odoriko or dancing girls who served the same purpose but were not available for sex with the customers. By the late 18th century the true profession of geisha had appeared as female entertainers quite separate from prostitutes.

Despite the hazy dividing line of their origin Geisha are most definitely not prostitutes. The word is rooted in the word gei meaning art and sha meaning doer or person practicing something. Therefore the very word means “artist and geisha take their art very seriously indeed. In the 19th century and the early 20th, during the heyday of geisha culture, it took years of specialised training to become a fully fledged geisha. Young girls would be apprenticed to a geisha house or okiya under the maternal rule of the house matriarch as young as age 5 and spend years attending special schools for geisha learning the arts of dance, music, ceremony, beauty, conversation, calligraphy, acting and all the other essential skills before becoming a junior geisha or maiko in their teens. They would not achieve full geisha status until their late teens or early twenties. It was a life entirely dedicated to their art and profession.

The geisha became organised into five main districts called hanamachi or gokagai within Kyoto; Gion Kobu, Kamishichiken and Pontocho of the highest class and Gion Higashi and Miyagawa-cho of the lower rank. These districts were entirely feminine, dominated by its matriarchs and okiya owners. Geisha were tied to their okiya, which owned them and all their kimonos and accessories, until such time as they had paid off the debt of their long training to the house. Men were just guests in the hanamachi to be entertained with the company and performance of geisha at its tea houses and theatres. This was a world of women and ruled by women.

Geisha were generally forbidden to sell themselves for sex although many would become courtesans to rich patrons or danna and depend for their life of luxury upon these wealthy patrons. There would also come about, in a later time, a practice of selling the virginity of newly emerging, apprentice maiko in a ceremony known as mizuage. In later years, after World War Two, many prostitutes usurped the title of geisha but a true geisha would be horrified to be considered a prostitute.

Geisha were not only supposed to be artists but a work of art themselves. They would spend years in the perfecting of their elegance and style; every movement from lighting a man’s cigarette to pouring tea infinitely delicate, subtle and as choreographed as a dance routine. A highly skilled geisha could place a touch of magic into the most mundane of tasks, filling the air with the nuances of her beauty and elegance.

That beauty did not come easily. They may seem quaint and dated by our standards today but in the 19th and early 20th century, geisha were at the very cutting edge of Japanese fashion and style. They were the supermodels of their day; their fabulous and extraordinarily expensive kimonos beyond the dreams of avarice to the average woman and their elaborate hair styles and make up at the forefront of fashion. In the west the usual image of a geisha is the geisha with the porcelain doll style make up, heavily waxed elaborately fashioned hair decorated with ornamentation or kansashi and highly colourful decorated kimono. In fact that is the style more usually associated with maiko; the apprentice geisha in her teens and flower of her youth. She converts to full geisha probably in her early twenties in a ceremony called erikae which means “turning of the collar”. Full geisha and maiko can be told apart from the colour of the collar of their nagajuban which is the under kimono worn beneath the full kimono and allowed to show at the neck. In a maiko it is red but white in a full geisha.

There were prices to be paid for this elaborate beauty. Young maiko would often be obliged to sleep on incredibly uncomfortable wooded perches under their necks to prevent them ruining their hairstyles. Those hairstyles incurred painful visits to the hairdressers too where their hair would be brutally tugged, wrenched and waxed into those elaborate styles. Many older geisha developed bald patches in the middle of their heads later in life as a result of the abuse their hair was subjected to.

Geisha were not simple playthings for men. In fact within the male dominated society of Japanese culture they came closer than any women to something approaching equal status with men. They were probably awarded higher status than their client’s wives. They were deeply respected and indeed revered. They held a position in society roughly equivalent to today’s supermodels or film actresses. Top geishas were famous throughout society and would pack theatres for their dance performances. They weren’t subservient in conversation either. Geisha were expected to be witty and intelligent, beguiling men with their subtlety and cleverness. A geisha at the top of her game would read all the newspapers daily in order to be able to converse with any man on current affairs. They were bewitching and mysterious. Men adored them. Young girls aspired to be like them.

Sadly during World War Two, Japan’s defeat, the subsequent occupation of Japan by allied forces and the Westernisation of Japan, the rarefied world of the Flower and the Willow came crashing down. In the 1920s Kyoto could have boasted some 80,000 geisha today the number is closer to 2,000. Fortunately there seems to be a revival of interest in this most feminine and delicate of professions. It is to be hoped so. It would be a tragic loss if the strange, mysterious and enchanting, woman’s world of the Flower and the Willow vanished forever.

Michaela.


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