The Land od the Rising Yen

people, sing and dance to them, do everything a geisha does, but
they will not yet have a patron. The maiko starts her general training
for becoming a geisha at the age of six; she will go on to intensified and more
specialized training from sixteen to twenty-two, another six years — which
makes it sixteen years altogether. What the hell do they learn during all this
time? you wonder. The art of flower arranging with its three main styles, seika,
moribana and nageire, as well as complicated rules for special
occasions, is not exactly simple but — make a generous allowance — three years
should be sufficient to learn it all; ‘tea-ism’, as the art of the tea-ceremony
is called, is not much less complicated, but surely during the same three years
one could grasp it? The girls learn to dance but their dances consist of tiny
timid steps to left and right, backwards and forwards, and even I — not a born dancer
— could learn this in three days. And they cannot really play the guitar. Their
conversation and their repartee may be devastating, although I doubt it; but
all these years of training are not sufficient to teach them one single word of
any foreign language. You hate to seem uncharitable and ungallant, but you keep
on wondering: how is it that a physician can qualify in six years but a whore —
even if she is the most accomplished and delightful whore in the world — needs
sixteen?
    For getting rid of money and
impressing on your foreign or Japanese friends that ‘I can afford it’, the maiko girl system is unbeatable. An hour and a half in the company of two maiko girls, with a few drinks but without a morsel of food, costs Y 30,000 (£35 or
$85). That’s the bare minimum and to spend no more would look rather stingy,
and this is only the beginning of an evening’s entertainment. For this sum you
are entertained by two dolls painted white, who cannot play the guitar
properly, cannot dance and with whom you cannot exchange one single word. The
fully qualified geishas cost twice as much; and as a Japanese friend — a great
authority on the subject — remarked, are twice as boring.
     
    This boredom is a grave threat to the
whole industry. Maiko girls are bored stiff themselves, and few young
girls are prepared to become maikos. That’s where the strike threatens.
In the old days starving fathers had to sell their young daughters to
tea-houses to get a few yen and in the hope that the girls would have a better
life than they would in their own miserable home. Those days, however, have
passed: Japan is one of the most prosperous countries of the world and no one
needs to sell his daughter. So it is mostly daughters of tea-house owners and
daughters of geishas who are persuaded — not without difficulty — to become maikos and to keep up the family tradition and — more important — the family business.
And once the girls have been persuaded to take the plunge, they have to work
like studious schoolgirls and live like nuns.
    The would-be patrons also show signs
of being bored with the whole system. As girls of their own class become more
emancipated, they become more and more accessible, and they are better company
than the maikos and geishas.
    So the system is slowly withering
away, being bored out of existence.
    No maiko girl can become a
geisha before she is twenty-two. But how long can she remain a geisha? There is
no age-limit. It is like acting Romeo or a beautiful and bashful maiden in
Kabuki: you must reach a certain age before you can do it properly. An English
friend, who had been a frequent guest at geisha parties for years, told me that
he had never met a geisha worth listening to under the age of forty.
    The most popular geisha of Kyoto — the city of maiko girls, all under twenty-two — is a lady in her middle
seventies. She is adored, much in demand and commands exorbitant fees. She had
about five different patrons in her younger days and has none today; but she is
witty, well-read, quick on the uptake and has an inexhaustible repertoire of
naughty songs — new and old — which she sings with gusto and with an attractive
twinkle in her eye.
     
    ‘Some of Kyoto’s ruins may be older
but none is more attractive,’ remarked my English friend of this lady.
    I don’t think he was right.
    Some of the temples, art treasures
and gardens are fabulous. My favourite — not for its beauty but as a place of
interest — is the Nijo Castle in Nikomura Palace. It has a special waiting