Ugetsu Monogatari (Tales of Moonlight and Rain)- “Kibitsu no Kama” (The Cauldron of Kibitsu) written by Ueda Akinari starts off with a large rice cauldron that indicates good or bad fortune; if the sound is loud and clear, it means fortune and when there is no sound it means misfortune. Shotaro the main character pulls on the sleeve of a beautiful woman named Isora. She is the daughter of Kasada Miki, the chief priest of Kibitsu. Isora is an unmarried noblewomen; there was a footnote that said unmarried noblewomen would hide their faces from men with the long sleeves of their kimono. Shotaro’s status in society is of the low-class and he says if the marriage were to take place, his family would ascend to aristocracy class. The divination of the cauldron at the shrine whistled loud and clear and so Shotaro and Isora married. Isora was a dutiful wife who woke up early in morning to do chores such as hoeing and had other capabilities like clean fish and pluck chickens. She was a good wife in that she made breakfast for Shotaro. If she remained in the Kasada household, she would be playing the koto, but now her hands have become rough because of work. She regrets nothing as long as she can make a good wife to Shotaro. Isora doesn’t know that Shotaro is messing with a prostitute named Sode. Shotaro’s father catches him in the act and Isora defends Shotaro and from the father’s scolding saying “I am sure all this happened because the other woman somehow deceived him to go to her.” From thereon the cauldron is dead silent. Isora sold her kimonos and gave the money to help out Sode. Shotaro leaves Isora and goes to Sode being ungrateful of her act of kindness. Sode starts getting nightmares every day since the passing of Isora, who became an angry vengeful ghost and is haunting Shotaro. Isora repeats the lines in Sode’s body:”I regret nothing, as long as I can be a good wife to you. Your Isora regrets nothing.” Shotaro freaks out and doesn’t survive the last day behind the charms of the closed house and both Shotaro and Sode die. The cauldron resounds loud and clear upon someone’s wish of coming true. The story ends with: “That is why you must never twist the answer of the gods.”

This story is similar to Akinari’s Bewitched in the case a supernatural force is plagued upon the main characters. Much alike Manago being placed in a higher station in society, Isora was the daughter of a head priest so she was also placed into higher society. It is comparable to Akinari’s usage of character in Manago in the Bewitched story where she is a symbol of a deceiver. Isora gave Shotaro the benefit of the doubt in his defense saying Sode somehow deceived him to going to her. Could it be that Akinari just thinks of women as people who manipulate and deceive men? Women were portrayed as intermediaries of class, wealth, and fortune. Here, Shotaro, the male main character of the story “Kibitsu no Kama” acts as an intermediary of class and fortune. Shotaro resides in low-class society and mentions how his family would ascend to aristocracy class when the marriage is done. His social standing would increase when he and Isora marries. The cauldron itself is a representation of fortune- good and bad. Shotaro was a part of good fortune, Isora was a good, loyal, and loving wife. He was blind to this and his fortune turned into misfortune, where Isora’s vengeful ghost pursues Shotaro and his prostitute lover, Sode and kills them both.

After watching the film “Memoirs of a Geisha”, I saw that geishas evolved from women placed in lower-class society. Chiyo was a daughter of a fisherman in a small village and after the death of their mother, Chiyo and her sister were sold to people of other houses; Chiyo’s sister was sold to a brothel and Chiyo was sold to an “okiya”- a house for geisha in Gion, which is a district of Kyoto, Japan. It was set to be a social standard for women living in poverty to be sold to okiyas by their parents to become a geisha- “We do not become Geisha to pursue our own destinies. We become Geisha because we have no other choice.” It saddens me that women were oppressed in the sense that they had no power or freedom of choice to become what they wanted, but instead were forced to live the life of a geisha. Other social standards imposed on the geishas included paying off debts that were bound to geishas since the start of serving the mistress of their appointed okiya and to give the “look” to attract a man’s attention- based on the scene where Chiyo is being transformed into a geisha and Mameha is teaching her the ways of a geisha.

A geisha’s place in society is shown through a kimono, which defined the geisha’s status and class. The kimono is worn daily by geishas and there were different styles worn for different occasions such as tea ceremonies, parties, funerals, and other events. In relevance to my visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, there was a wide variety of kimonos being displayed and a lot of the designs on them were based around cherry blossoms and chrysanthemums. There were some that were plain looking (most likely worn by ordinary women) and the flashy fashionable kimonos that were most likely worn by women of upper-class society. There was also a six-panel folding screen that depicted dancers of the Edo period which reminded me of the scene of Chiyo’s dance performance. It embodies the elegance and reserved movements of Japanese dance and it also points to the importance of fans in the overall scheme of a performance and demonstrates how the flowing sleeves of a costume were used to accent the fluid lines created by dancers.

There’s a quote from the book and I’m not sure if it was said in the film that says “I certainly can’t afford to have a powerful man upset with me. . . if a powerful man makes up his mind to destroy me, well, he’ll do it!” This is an implication that women didn’t have as much power as men did in Japanese society. They were basically inclined to please these powerful men because they were dependent upon the wealthy, upper-class men of Japanese society.

Chiyo was affiliated with upper-class men such as Dr. Crab, The Chairman, Nobu (chairman’s best friend), and The Baron. In the book, Dr. Crab considered himself something of an aristocrat. Geishas typically supply money for their assigned okiyas, pay back the people that financed them once they start working as a geisha, and will work for men that offer the highest bid. Chiyo’s encounter with The Chairman changes her fortune drastically and this goes to show how gieshas/women were intermediaries of class, wealth, and fortune.

A jorou-ya is a brothel which is a place of prostitution. Prostitutes wore kimono and hair ornaments similar to geisha, but their obi were tied in the front . . . a mark of a prostitute; an obi is a ribbon- like sash. Geishas underwent a ceremony called mizuage: sexual initiation of an apprentice geisha, i.e., her virginity. The mizuage practice became illegal in 1959. These are all signs/symbols of prostitution and I’m sure many people perceive geishas as prostitutes, so the question I propose is: are geisha prostitutes?

A geisha is a traditional Japanese artist- entertainer. The cast of the central characters in “Memoirs of a Geisha” were played by Chinese actors and this sparked controversy. It caused a stir in the Chinese Internet community where some users were unhappy due to rising natiionalist sentiment, especially because some mistook geisha for prostitutes. A profession similar to that of a Geisha did exist in imperial China. These women were refined in art, literature, history and social manners. They lived in brothels but did not make a living by selling their bodies. Their job was to entertain male guests with their talents in music, chess, calligraphy, painting etc., a practice known in Chinese as “selling one’s talents instead of one’s body” (賣藝不賣身). However, though highly refined and famous (involved in innumerable Chinese poems, literature, legends and folklore), they did not enjoy the status accorded to geisha in Japan. Some people unfamiliar with this cultural difference misunderstood geisha in a negative way. Those people misunderstood geisha in a negative way, but they didn’t grasp the artistic and cultural aspect of the Geisha in Japanese society.

Reference: http://www.gojapango.com/culture/memoirs_of_a_geisha.html

In the blog by Joi Ito has a torn moral stance on the subject and question: Are Geisha Prostitutes? He believes geisha represent the polygamist past of Japan more than they represent prostitutes. I agree with him in that the geisha is a symbol of the polygamist past of Japan, but I firmly believe prostitution stemmed from the geisha and grew from it. Polygamy doesn’t help reduce the misconception of a geisha. Ito says the geisha have gone through a variety of changes in their roles in the past and are now totally different from where they started out. Back then, poor families would sell their women to the okiya and they would be taken care of by powerful men. This is much so the same scenario for Chiyo in the film “Memoirs of a Geisha”. Nowadays, the blogger says people don’t “sell” their children so most geisha become geisha to learn the tradition and to meet interesting people. Most people who go to tea houses cannot afford to be a full sponsor of a geisha and corporate expense accounts pay for most of the drinks. People still sponsor geisha but it only usually works when both are truly in love and in many cases, this turns into a true marriage. Now geishas can marry for love, but in the past geishas were living for the money and did whatever it took to survive in Japanese society of that time. Joi Ito says “there are a lot of bars and even tea houses that are about prostitution. In fact there is even a service in Gion that provides prostitutes who double as geisha to tea houses for the foreigners who come to Kyoto thinking that geisha are prostitutes and insist on having sex. On the other hand, the bars that have evolved from the traditional tea houses and the old tea houses in Kyoto are still fairly legitimate places for people to meet future wives and for women to look for future husbands outside of the arranged marriage system.” I believe it is okay to think geishas were prostitutes in the past, but nowadays it is different and that a geisha doesn’t necessarily symbolize a prostitute. You cannot blame people for their misconceptions of a geisha because they were a lot of bars and tea houses that offer prostitutes. Ito claims that it isn’t fair that women are not treated equally in Japan and the “tradition” is not supportive of women’s rights. I agree with him; the tradition of the geisha is equivalent to a single pathway. I believe women in current-day Japan have more freedom in becoming what they dream of as opposed to the oppressed past, but I could be wrong. On the bright side, Ito also mentions that the tradition supports a great deal of art and culture. Indeed, I got to enjoy the artistic and cultural aspects of a Geisha within Japanese society through the lens of Chiyo (also known as Sayuri) in the film “Memoirs of a Geisha”.

Reference: http://joi.ito.com/weblog/2003/04/28/are-geisha-pros.html

In reading “An Old Woman’s Hermitage” From Life of a Sensuous Woman, Saikaku starts off saying “A beautiful woman, many ages have agreed, is an ax that cuts down a man’s life. . .how foolish are the men who die young of overindulgence in the way of sensuous love.” He places women as intermediaries of superstition, in which case he believes beautiful women are the culprits to the deaths of young men due to overdose of sensuous love. I disagree and I believe that men have just as much control as women in maintaining a proper balance when it comes to sensuous love. In “Mistress of a Domain Lord”, I discovered the same thing where Saikaku blames the woman for wearing out the lord and making him physically weak; “I was amazed to discover that the councilors thought it was my fault. They said I was a woman from the capital who liked fancy sex and had worn out their lord.” The councilors agreed to the superstition and made the decision to send her back to her parents. There is a social injustice in that all the councilors were men and their thoughts were probably similar to Saikaku’s assertion that women are the leaders of sensuous love, thus men’s bodies are weakened and/or die. In the selection “Five Hundred Disciples of the Buddha- I’d Known Them All”, Saikaku names a similar example where the woman in the story recalls one of her disciples: “He just folded up. He grew weaker and weaker, like a flame in a lantern, and then he was gone. He was only twenty-four.” She was associated with five hundred disciples- her encounter with him surely could not be the sole reason for him passing away.

After reading “A Stylish Woman Who Brought Disaster”, I pinpointed a section where the wife of the domain lord shows resentment towards the lord’s mistress. She says “The lord treats me now as if I hardly existed. He’s had his beautiful mistress from the domain brought all the way here to Edo, and he doesn’t think about anyone but her day and night . . . But I did have this doll made to look like her. At least I can cause pain to it.” The wife is envious of the attention the mistress gets from the lord and she acts as an intermediary of superstition, in believing she’s causing pain to the mistress through the doll that she claims looks like her. Indeed, the lord is worried and also believes in this superstition saying “I have no doubt at all that very soon my mistress won’t be safe from my wife’s avenging soul. Her life is in danger here . . . have her return to the domain.”

In the piece “A Monk’s Wife in Worldly Temple”, a woman dressed up as a temple page- sexual partners for the monks, encounters the head priest who falls in love with her. She “agreed to become his temporary wife for three years in exchange for twenty-five pounds of silver. I became what people call an “oven god”, which is a woman living and cooking in a temple; it was a custom that was widespread but officially forbidden.” The woman temple page disguised as a boy in this story acts as an intermediary of class, and wealth. She increased her social standing by living with the head priest and gains access to the monk’s wealth of twenty-five pounds of silver and in exchange she just cooks. In a similar example the woman in “Five Hundred Disciples of the Buddha- I’d Known Them All” acts as an intermediary of wealth and fortune by sleeping with men. She recalls the painful years of being forced to work getting money from men. “women who sold themselves, I was sure, were the most fearful of all women, and I began to grow frightened of myself. With this single body of mine I’d slept with more than ten thousand men.”

Japanese women during the Edo period have played a submissive yet power role within society as intermediaries of class, wealth, fortune, and superstition.

In reading Saikaku’s stories I’ve come to realize his selection of stories in “Life of a Sensuous Woman” contains symbolism for love, lust, and temptation. In “An Old Woman’s Hermitage”, the hermit begins to tell her story to these two young men and recalls “all the loves in her own life.” When she saw women and men lying together, she’d feel excited, and when she heard them in the dark, her heart would pound. She says “Naturally I began to want to make love myself.” And she began to feel love was the most important thing in her life from thereon. She claims that during her days “young women know a lot more about lovemaking.” She concludes saying “I just followed my desires wherever they went– and I ruined myself.” In the “Mistress of a Domain Lord”, there’s a quote that says “women, you know, are very basic creatures. They just can’t forget about physical love. . . they’ll feel a rush and go dizzy with desire. . . They want to make love with a flesh- and- blood man all the more.” In the reading “A Monk’s Wife in a Worldly Temple”, there is an old woman who has eavesdropped on the priest and the temple page “saying little things to each other in bed. . . even at my age I just can’t forget sex.” Even at an extremely old age, the old lady has sex resided in her memory and engraved in her head. In the selected piece called “A Teacher of Calligraphy and Manners”, the teacher of calligraphy loved a man which was one of her customers very much. “Whenever I met him I forgot I was performing and opened my heart completely to him. I trusted him and told him everything. During one of the man’s visits, I was unable to continue writing. I sat there holding my brush and thinking only about him.” She “made love with the man day and night. When he lost his desire, she would strengthen him with food and continued. Gradually, he ran dry and grew weak. In the “Five Hundred Disciples of the Buddha- I’d Known Them All” story, the woman in the story recalls a lot of the deceased disciples she’s been with. One of them she shared a pillow with when she was younger, another they exchanged deep vows and the guy even tattooed her name on his wrist, in another she worked for him as a parlor maid and he loved her in so many ways that even after all those years she couldn’t forget him. There was another man where she lived with him and they loved each other dearly and when she was working in Edo, there was a man she met with secretly six nights a month. There was also a priest where by the time she met him they were “used to every kind of sex” and they went at it day and night. Each story of Saikaku’s have elements of symbolism for love, lust, and temptation.

Based on Saikaku’s stories, it would be safe to assume a woman’s place in society is dependent upon the location of the woman. The beautiful and cultured women resided in Kyoto. In the old hermit’s story, the hermit didn’t come from a low-class family; her mother was commoner, but her father was from the middle-ranking aristocratic class. Her life went downhill, but she “happened to be born with a beautiful face, so she went to Kyoto to serve a court lady of the highest rank, and learned most of the elegant, refined ways of aristocrats.” “Mistress of a Domain Lord” says the retainers of the domain lord didn’t bother to look for women among the commoners in Edo. Those women were “ordinary” women raised in the eastern provinces. They wanted to look in Kyoto where they heard attractive women were at. “Kyoto women have a beautiful way of speaking.” Some of the social standards imposed on women mentioned in the story revolves around a certain way a woman should move and how she should wear her clothes-“She should move and wear her clothes gracefully, and her figure should show dignity and refinement. She was to have a gentle personality, be skilled at all the arts that women learn, and know something about everything.” In a similar example in the story of the teacher of calligraphy, ordinary women in Kyoto had the privilege to learn calligraphy and sell their skills transcribing letters. Under the requirements of serving an aristocrat, these women “make a decent living” in society and serve as role models for young girls to follow the footsteps of women calligraphy teachers and study under them.

The author places an idealistic social standard that women placed/born into poverty should sell their bodies and society would accept that and be okay with it. The idea that Japanese women can sell their bodies for money symbolizes prostitution. In the same way the woman who slept with more than ten thousand men in the story of the five hundred disciples, it symbolizes prostitution. Saikaku provides us readers a side story where the merchant tricks poor innocent women into selling their bodies for just a little bit of money:

“The merchant pays a jester with a shaved head to pretend to be a wealthy visitor from the western provinces and has him ask women from all over Kyoto to come interview to be his mistress. The merchant attends the interview, and if a woman catches his eye, he asks her to stay and secretly negotiates with the owner of the house for a secluded room. Then he asks the woman to sleep with him for just that one time. The surprised woman is terribly angry and disappointed, but when she tries to leave, he says all sorts of things to persuade her. Finally he mentions money, and since the woman has paid so much for the interview, she gives in. For selling herself, she gets two small gold pieces. There’s nothing else she can do. But women who aren’t from poor families don’t do that.”

In the “Mistress of a Domain Lord”, the author mentions that “The love a lord feels for a page is deeper than anything he feels for a woman. His wife is definitely in second place. In my opinion, this is because a lord’s wife isn’t allowed to show her jealousy the way commoner women do.” Society sets a social standard for commoner women to display jealousy whenever they please, whereas women of the upper-class are restricted from showing their bitter, envious feelings. Another examples of this is within the story called “A Stylish Woman Who Brought Disaster”, where the wife of the lord feels like she is also placed in second place. She feels the lord treats her as if she hardly existed and that the mistress is on the lord’s mind day and night. This is connected to the idea that the wife’s lord isn’t allowed to express her jealous feelings the same way commoner women of her times can.

Women who lived during the Edo time period in Japan have had social standards imposed on them by society, thus defining their place in society, and also holding a symbolic meaning within Japanese society.

Women play a submissive yet powerful role in Japanese society as intermediaries of class, wealth, and fortune. In the story “Bewitched”, Manago plays the polite lady in order to win men’s hearts and in her attempt to own Toyo-o, she says kind words such as: “I shall dry my clothes with the warmth of your kindness”. Toyo-o dreams of Manago greeting him at the door saying, “I cannot forget your kindness, and I love you”. I could imagine men failing to resist and abiding to temptations if a woman were to say those things. This goes to show that words are powerful and women during those times could use this method in obtaining and intermediating men of the upper-class that were wealthy and fortunate. Toyo-o’s father was a prosperous fisherman who hired workers to work for him. His daughter married a merchant. It was not told she was good with words, but she is an example of a woman who increased her social standing because she married a merchant. During those times merchants were the money makers because mercantilism was on the rise and prospering.

I reside in a lower-middle class, Chinese- oriented household and I can relate to the women who wanted to increase their social standing by marrying wealthy men. My mother would tell my sister on rare occasions “marry a doctor because he can support you”. It would seem as though she is trying to engrave it in her mind, but I believe marrying a doctor isn’t necessarily the only option out there when it comes to seeking support economically, financially, etc.

-Rickie Chiu

In reading Ueda Akinari’s “Bewitched”, I can’t help but notice women are placed second to men within an economical working Japanese society. Akinari mentions a samurai in the introduction, Toyo-o’s sister is married to a merchant, and towards the midway point of his story there were an aged woodcutter, rice thrasher, and an old blacksmith. This is relevant towards the four- tiered social system made up of samurais, farmers, craftsmen, and merchants of Japanese society during the Edo period. Manago, the antagonist is placed in a higher station in society because the home in which she lived in all seemed to be made of valuable classical vintage. The cultured woman resided in Kyoto and Manago was a part of that society. In response to Manago’s devious proposal, Toyo-o responded by saying “I have no property of my own. . . I have no power to earn my own living. How could I support you?” This relates back to the idea that women didn’t have power in the working force and relied on men to support them. It is made a social standard that women go out into the general public and try to marry a wealthy merchant. It is also a social standard to hire a private palanquin to carry a woman when traveling from place to place. Manago later on possesses the official’s daughter who was then serving as a lady-in-waiting at the imperial palace in Kyoto. It feels as though all the beautiful and upper-class women are placed in Kyoto during those times- “As she was accustomed to the refined manners of court life, there was a glamorous quality in her appearance and behavior; she looked quite beautiful among provincial girls”.

It could be implied that Akinari uses Manago as a symbol of manipulation and a deceiver. Looks can be deceiving and the beautiful women and refined women in his story goes to show that. Manago is caught red-handed by another man she once bewitched and deceived and thus she is a prime example/representation for deceitful actions; her way of speech manipulates the men to join her side and love her. She would say things like “I enjoyed the blessings of your hospitality and friendship. I felt certain that you were a sincere man, and that I should devote the rest of my life to you.” In her defense for stealing the precious offerings from the shrine she says to Toyo-o, “Please think all this over carefully, trusting the sincerity of my love for you.” She would use “love” as an excuse and way to manipulate Toyo-o into thinking she really loves him.

It was considered a socially accepted standard for women in Japanese society during those times to be dependent upon being supported by men of the upper-class.

-Rickie Chiu