Geisha

I look mildly ridiculous in my sweatpants and winter clothes next to these elaborately dressed geigi, but they were all excited about my cat t-shirt so I feel special XD

At some point in your life, you have probably heard about the mysterious geisha of Japan. Dressed in traditional clothes, performing traditional music and dance, the picture of grace and elegance. Given how closely we associate geisha and Japan, you would expect to see some when you visit right? However, just like foreigners have the conception that Japanese people eat sushi every day when in fact it is more of a once a month affair, seeing a geisha is actually a lot more elusive than the perception of Japan.

For starters, 芸者"geisha" is actually a regional term. "Geisha" is the Kanto (Tokyo area) version of the word. The kanji 芸者, which represent the meanings "arts" and "person," are pronounced differently depending on the region. From my understanding, only certain cities have geisha at all and each has its own word. In Kyoto it is pronounced "geiko" and in Niigata City it is pronounced as "geigi." The "gi" sound of the Niigata city pronunciation isn't actually a standard pronunciation of the kanji, so the running joke about why it is pronounced that way is "people in Niigata couldn't read."

Given my long term interest in Japan, I actually have some geisha themed items. During my first study abroad, I was given some post cards with paintings of geisha on them and in college a Japanese friend of mine gave me a 手ぬぐい(multipurpose pretty towel) with geisha on it. These remained on my wall for the majority of my college life.

As a project for my writing one class in college, we had to analyze an art piece. After two years of staring at my geisha 手ぬぐい, I decided it was time to do a deep dive about what this artwork really was. Turns out the piece isn't actually of geisha but is of maiko, which are geisha in training. There really wasn't much to be found about this piece, at least in English, but it definitely inspired some research. Later on in my college career I found myself in a Japanese culture class learning about geisha, where I learned a lot more about what geisha really do. While what a geisha looks like is known in the outside world, what they really do is somewhat unknown.

What I learned in the class is that geisha are highly trained performers and entertainers, typically chatting and performing at fancy dinners. The training takes many years, 8 apparently. That's twice as long as my college degree. Long time to train for something. Something else I learned is that back in the day some geisha were actually sex workers, which was a little shocking to hear. In America we associate geisha with elegance and beauty, their dark history filtered out in the cultural export process. To be honest, I had a hard time believing this until I found some old photo albums from my great uncle's time stationed in Japan (1951-1952). There were many pictures of geisha, but some pointed to the darker side of the geisha industry. It was a little shocking to see proof in something from recent history, but nonetheless shed light on the mysterious world of what a geisha can be.

In my 16 months of living in Japan, I'd never seen a geisha in real life. Until a month ago.

I got the opportunity to participate in a tour from Edge of Niigata focused on the history of the Niigata city area. Given Niigata's proximity to rivers, the ocean, and a good midway point between the major ports of Hakodate and Nagasaki along the west coast of Japan, it flourished as a port town and center of trade and merchants. What is one thing that all businessmen love? Fancy parties. What is a great thing to have at fancy parties? Geisha (well, in this case geigi). As part of the tour we visited Saito Villa, the residence turned museum of a wealthy merchant family. We got to the party room and waited eagerly for the geisha to arrive.

The geisha performance was one of shamisen (traditional Japanese three stringed instrument), singing, and dancing. Three geisha performed for us, one playing shamisen and singing and the others dancing. Apparently the younger geishas, those still in training, wear longer sleeved kimonos with a red under garment and the fully realized geisha have shorter sleeves, longer kimono, and white undergarments. Other differences include the younger geisha wear their obi (belt) higher on their torso, have seasonal flowers, a rounder peach shaped bun, and the obi knot is arrow shaped. Full geisha wear the obi lower, have a traditional folded obi knot, don't wear flowers, and a less circular bun.

I was starstruck. Like of course I was excited to see a traditional performance, but after four years of staring at pictures geisha I finally got to meet the real thing and it was much more exciting than expected. They moved gracefully, sang beautifully, were friendly, mysterious, and also felt very down to earth. Niigata prefecture is a pretty rural place which leads to rather down to earth residents, which isn't exactly what you would expect from someone as elegant as geisha. Geisha are meant as entertainers for fancy dinner parties and even entertaining the Emperor himself. Yet, here they were dancing for us in front of the kerosene heaters.

Luckily for us, this performance involved some interaction. This took the form of a complicated musical version of a rock, paper, scissors battle. You have to keep up with a rock paper scissors game against the geisha while keeping rhythm on a taiko drum with their singing and shamisen playing. If you lose, you have to spin and keep with the rhythm. I lost pretty quickly, but apparently I could keep rhythm enough for my battle was used for a promotional Instagram story XD.

The most exciting part was the question and answer time. To be completely honest, outside of geisha training not a whole lot is known about exactly what they do and how they live, so the opportunity to ask them questions was really exciting. I busted out my best simple Japanese to ask them two questions: "can you put on your kimono yourself?" and "can you pick your own kimono?" Not the most sophisticated of questions I know but I was very excited and had to speak Japanese on the spot. Apparently it is nearly impossible to put on kimono alone, with three people being the optimal number of people involved. Unlike the yukata where one can tie the obi themselves, the kimono obi knots are complicated enough someone else needs to tie them. Also the collar is pulled down in the back on a kimono, which is another step which requires at least one extra person. As for choosing their own kimono, they can choose from the company's collection of kimonos as long as they don't choose the same color as another geisha.

I was excited beyond words to interact with them and wish I could go back and ask even more questions, but apparently it costs ３万円(about $220) per geisha per performance, so I don't think I'll get the chance to talk to geisha like this again anytime soon. My excitement was honestly a little surprising to me. Perhaps after spending so many years hearing about and looking at paintings of geisha, maybe it was that elegant and mysterious air they have, or maybe it was how incredibly human they seemed in all their geisha beauty. Whatever it was, I had a really wonderful time and hope I can meet geisha again someday.