Geisha

“ Not only is the kimono of the geisha, its colour and design, thought out by the artist, but all the accessories of her toilette, such as the obi, the fan, and the ornaments for her hair. It is the artist’s ambition that she should be a picture, perfect in every detail, and the geisha is always a picture, beautiful beyond description. ”

“ Although the geisha has little history, having first come into existence the middle of last century, her popularity is such in Japan that no parties are thought to be complete without her presence to brighten it up,—to entertain the guests with her accomplishments and infectious mirth, and to dance and play for them. Although her life is essentially rapid and gay, yet, in spite of her lapses from virtue at times, the geisha always retains her native modesty and grace. It is true, many of them are extremely familiar with foreigners, who are their best patrons ”

“ The geisha hung her lantern to a convenient hook, and unwrapped her long crepe obi, or sash. In a moment she had slipped off her gold-brocaded robe and disclosed a still more beautiful under kimono of azure silk embroidered with gold dragons. Loosening the inner obi, she dropped her blue robe from her graceful shoulders, and stood before us as nude and as unconscious as the nymph of the public bath. ”

“ Dressed in faultless style, in richest silks and brilliant colors, geisha are moving pictures which have charmed generations of Japanese men and, in recent decades, many foreigners. Japanese political party dinners and consultations are often held in restaurants, where geisha make the fun and pour the wine. If foreign guests are to be entertained by wealthy individuals, by companies, or even by cities, the inevitable geisha is there, and is presented as a characteristic product of Japan—which she truly is. ”

“ To return to the question of the social status of the geisha, I should say that it corresponds more exactly with that of a Parisian actress than of an Athenian hetaira. Convention having banished the actress from the Japanese stage, the geisha takes her place as the natural recipient of masculine homage. She is much courted, and sometimes makes a brilliant match. There are a large number who make the profession an excuse for attracting rich admirers, just as the name of "actress" in more Puritan climes will cover a multitude of sins. ”

“ The face is whitened and the lips are stained vermilion, and the shaved eyebrows replaced by short, slanting lines of black paint, which lend a touch at once piquant and grotesque. The Geisha of the house is a vastly different person. Her sole mission in life is to amuse and entertain. ”

“ Sometimes—and the occasions are supposed to be so sufficiently rare as to be of complimentary value—a popular geisha will drag the hem of her embroidered kimono along the street in this custom of courtesy by which she shows her appreciation for her entertainment. [236] It should be remembered that a geisha is traditionally a guest. In Tokyo, said Hori, a young blood who has spent his last spendthrift sen on a gorgeous dinner will await such approval as the hallmark upon his artistry as host. ”

“ The first thing that caught our gaze, therefore, were two rows of geishas, picturesquely ranged on either side of the stage, with koto and drums ready for the opening overture. They were all painted and plastered after the usual geisha style, their little red and white faces surmounted by towering head-dresses122 of the ever-present cherry-blossom and wistaria. Dainty is a word that one constantly finds one’s self using while speaking of the geisha, and none other seems to serve the purpose so well. ”

“ Notwithstanding all this apparent comradeship, a certain rigid decorum between guest and geisha is invariably preserved at a Japanese banquet. However flushed with wine a guest may have become, you will never see him attempt to caress a girl; he never forgets that she appears at the festivities only as a human flower, to be looked at, not to be touched. The familiarity which foreign tourists in Japan frequently permit themselves with geisha or with waiter-girls, though endured with smiling patience, is really much disliked, and considered by native observers an evidence of extreme vulgarity. ”

“ The word “Geisha” means accomplished one, and there are schools for their education in music and the arts. People visit the girls more for pleasure than for profit, and since they are one of the institutions of Japan, I went one night to a tea-house to see them. Making myself as comfortable as possible on the floor, a screen door was slipped aside, and in came a pretty Geisha girl who touched her head to the floor three times, sat down and looked at each one of our party. ”

“ She will be friendly, even pleasantly familiar, but never, in public, is she guilty of the slightest impropriety. I have been to many gay parties in Japan, but I have never seen a geisha or her patron behave in a way that would shock the most fastidious American lady. Naturally the situation is somewhat different among low-class Japanese and the geisha they patronize. There are vulgar geisha to entertain vulgar men. But even a low-class geisha, if sent for in an emergency to entertain a man of taste, will often be sufficiently clever to adjust herself to the situation. ”

“ The geisha never by any chance become familiar with, or are treated familiarly by the women of the harems into which they are occasionally introduced, and yet some of them are not unchaste in their personal lives. This, however, is of course very exceptional. Occasionally the geisha becomes the concubine of a man of position, or the personal attendant of a man of wealth. When old age, that dread foe of woman the wide world over, creeps upon them, they become the teachers of the girls who are ambitious to become geisha. ”

“ CHAPTER VIII THE GEISHA With all their practical gifts—which, as one of themselves has remarked, will enable them to beat the world with the tips of their fingers—and all the power of assimilating and adapting to their own purposes the best that other nations have to offer them,—the Japanese are essentially and beyond all a nation of artists. It is not only in the work-shop and the studio, but also in the simplest act and detail of daily life, that this sense of the decorative oozes unconsciously forth, and most of all, and most unconsciously, in the Japanese woman—the geisha. ”

“ When called to a teahouse, the geisha always plays a piece of serious music, unless her guests expressly dispense with what they do not understand. After this duty is discharged, she may play whatever she or her guests please; and she generally takes to popular songs as they are the easiest to render. With Government officials and others who do not pretend to be musical connoisseurs, the geisha finds it all plain sailing as they appear satisfied with whatever she may thrum on her samisen; but at a party of amateur singers or musicians, her knowledge and skill are taxed to the utmost. ”

“ There was a time a generation or two ago when Japanese aristocrats occasionally took geisha for their wives, much as young English noblemen used to marry chorus girls. But those things have changed in Japan and it is a long time since a man of position has made such a match. The plain truth is that, however justly or unjustly, the geisha class is not respected. They are victims of the curious law which operates the world over to make us always a little bit contemptuous of those whose occupation it is to amuse us. ”

“ A further reason for the erroneous idea of what a geisha is, lies in the fact that Western civilization has no equivalent class. Geisha correspond more nearly to cabaret entertainers than to any other class we have, yet even here there is no real parallel. It is not customary in Japan—except in foreign-style hotels—to dine in public. If a man be alone in a hotel he dines by himself in his room, save that the little nesans who serve him will try to make themselves agreeable and that the proprietor may do the same. ”

“ In the same town of Kama-Suwa where the barracks-like high school for girls spreads its wings there also rises the tiled roof of a geisha house. Under its protection other daughters of the Empire are also being rigorously trained to duties—the life of amusing and entertaining. The position of the geisha cannot be illuminated by comparisons. There are the “sing-song girls” of Peking and the nautch dancers of India, and there were in the days of the fruition of Greek civilization the sisters of Aspasia ”

“ Undoubtedly, to the Japanese wife, the geisha is the "other woman." And as is so often the case with the "other woman," in whatever land you find her, the geisha has certain strategic advantages over the wife. Like good wives everywhere, the Japanese wife is concerned with humdrum things—the children, housekeeping, the family finances—the things which often irritate and bore a husband if harped upon. But the circumstances in which a husband meets a geisha are genial and gay. Her business is to make him forget his cares and enjoy himself. ”

“ The great ambition of a geisha is to "catch" some wealthy man of rank with her charms and become his concubine. My informant estimates that this is what happens to perhaps one half of the geisha. In such cases the man pays down a handsome sum to the owner, who sends part of it to the parents. Thus he buys his concubine, whom he usually keeps in a villa, not his home. I have asked if geisha ever become true, legal wives and am told "only very rarely." ”

“ If, without being actually a favourite, he has relatives or connections among the geisha-houses or tea-houses of the locality, the presentation is sometimes made as a mark of friendship. Many geisha also take an active part in the annual festivals of the local deity, when in gay dresses they precede the procession-cars that are drawn through the streets of the district under the god’s protection. It is a great advertisement for them, though the dresses are very expensive. The geisha’s profession naturally leads her to extravagance; and very few succeed in making both ends meet. ”

“ In their system of education, manners stand higher than morals, and many a géisha gladly leaves the dancing in the tea-houses to become the concubine of some wealthy Japanese or foreigner, thinking none the worse of herself for such a business arrangement, and going cheerfully back to her regular work, should her contract be unexpectedly ended. The géisha is not necessarily bad, but there is in her life much temptation to evil, and little stimulus to do right, so that, where one lives blameless, many go wrong, and drop below the margin of respectability altogether. ”

“ Then she lifted her pale blue kimono and revealed her tiny, clogged feet and ankles as she stepped into the junk; and by my side, singing melody and words that I could not understand, she went down the river. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, sympathised with the sad little Geisha girl, and admired her modesty and poetic tenderness for the dead youth that she loved.
I saw many Geisha girls and Japanese women of all classes, but they were not all like Sarawana, and so I tell you of her. Japanese men and women are very much like the white races ”

“ The geisha girls stand posed with open fan in hand above their heads, ready to begin the dance. They are very short with the slenderest of slender waists. Their soft and tender eyes are made blacker by painted lashes and brows ”

“ Alas, behind the merry laugh and sprightliness of the girls who adorn a feast lurks a skeleton. One is haunted by thoughts of the future of a large proportion of these butterflies. No doubt most foreigners generalise too freely in identifying the professions of geisha and joro. In the present organisation of society some geisha play a legitimate rôle. They gain in the career for which they have laboriously trained an outlet for the expression of artistic and social gifts which would have been denied them in domestic life. ”

“ Nothing can be too brilliant for the geisha; she is the life and soul of Japan, the merry sparkling side of Japanese life; she must be always gay, always laughing and always young, even to the end of her life. But 128 for the girl who is to become the ordinary domesticated wife it is different. Starting life as a bright, light-hearted little child, she becomes sadder and sadder in colour and in spirits with every passing year. Directly she becomes a wife her one ambition is to become old—in fact, it is almost a craze with her. ”

“ Also the geisha school, and saw girls taught dancing, music and tea ceremony. What perfectly delightful and charming little ladies Japanese girls of apparently all classes are. The smile of the geisha girl may be professional, but is very seductive and penetrating; so that the mere European man is soon a willing worshipper. The plump little waitresses in hotels and tea-houses, charmingly costumed, smiling as only they can smile, are incomparable. ”

“ Some excellent people I met in Japan—Americans imbued with the spirit of reform—objected strongly to the geisha system, contending that it is a barrier to happy domesticity. They felt that so long as there are geisha in Japan the average Japanese husband will have them at his parties, and will continue his present practice of leaving his wife at home when he goes out for a good time. ”

“ Also, in attendance upon each guest, there was a geisha. Some of the geisha were women perhaps twenty years old, wearing handsome dark kimonos which they generally carried with a great deal of style, but others were little maiko, dancing girls, in brilliant-coloured kimonos with the yard-long sleeves of youth. The youngest of these was perhaps twelve years of age, while the oldest may have been sixteen.
As I afterward learned, there is a vast difference between various grades of geisha. Those present at this luncheon were among the most popular in Tokyo. ”