20th Century Society
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?
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
It is unfortunate what happened to Japanese women at the time. Especially those that went into the geisha world to pay off a family’s debt. When I saw the movie in class, I sympathized with Chiyo. Her misfortune was brought about due to her parent’s spending, although it is never revealed why they demanded such money but only implied through a sickly mother. It is apparent that geishas were in a social class separate from conventional women. Chiyo’s behavior and pursuits showed throughout the movie that she was not an ordinary girl but a geisha. Furthermore, I agree that geisha’s were distinguished by their kimonos. In the MoMa, it was shown that geisha’s wore specially designed kimonos that were elegant in design. I am curious if the quality of their garments signified their fame as geishas.
Your brief history on geishas in your second post show a great amount of Japanese culture. Firstly, if geishas were the pinnacle of a women’s pursuit at the time, it perhaps implies that Japanese society discouraged women from pursuing anything of serious pursuits. Much like Europe, it seems that Japanese society excluded women from having an influential part in economic and political decisions. Also, the polygamy within Japan shows a belief in a system where males were dominant within government and the household since polygamy always works to the detriment of the women. It is interesting on how cultures from the west and east are similar yet different.