Women of the Pleasure Quarters

by Lesley Downer

  “This,” he explained, showing me a picture of an ornate hairstyle, decorated with ribbons, ornaments, and silk flowers, with a bagel-shaped rolled knot of hair worn high on the head, “is ware-shinobu. It’s the maiko’s first hairstyle. It means that she is young and cute.

  “And this”—turning the page to show me a less heavily decorated hairstyle with the knot lower down—“is the maiko’s second hairstyle, ofuku. It means that she is to be congratulated, she is no longer a virgin. Maiko used to start wearing their hair like this when they were thirteen.”

  “Thirteen?” I was aghast. It was hard to get to grips with the idea that the old geisha I knew had lost their virginity—in other words, been deflowered whether they liked it or not—at the tender age of thirteen.

  “They all had it,” he said carelessly. “They all had mizuage. If you listen to the old grannies at the teahouses, they’ll tell you, ‘We were children, we didn’t know anything, what could we do?’ In those days Kyoto was full of rich silk traders and kimono merchants. The danna would pay for mizuage, buy the girl a house, and pay her an allowance. The wives? They were like employees, they just thought it was normal. Nowadays they’d ask for a divorce! For three hundred years it was perfectly normal for men to pay and for women to give sex. All that’s stopped now, of course. Ever since 1958 it’s been completely different. It’s much more serious now. The maiko all concentrate on their dancing. The ofuku hairstyle just means she’s more senior.”

  Once you became a senior maiko, he said, there was no further to go. You wore your hair in the ofuku style, though there were a couple of other styles worn for special occasions: yakko-shimada, a sweeping elegant style worn for the New Year celebrations, decorated with sprigs of dried rice for fertility and good luck; and the katsuyama, named after the seventeenth-century bathhouse attendant who became a great courtesan famous for her splendid topknot. The maiko’s last hairstyle, which was very ornate indeed, was the sakko, which she wore for her last month before graduating to become a geisha.

  The door opened and a young woman came in, piping in a fluting falsetto, “Ohayo dosu! Sensei, o tanomo shimasu!”—“Good morning! Professor, could you please . . . ?” In the mornings maiko were always pale and subdued after the previous night’s parties. Without further ado, this one, in an everyday cotton yukata and with her long hair loose and shaggy, sat down, picked up a teen magazine, and started leafing through it.

  One way to spot an ex-maiko is the perfectly round little bald patch on the crown of her head. Having been tugged and pulled by the hairdresser week after week for five years, the hair never grows back. Watching Professor Ishihara at work, it was easy to see how this could happen. He was like an artist struggling to create beauty out of his chosen material—hair.

  With curling irons heated over a portable charcoal brazier, he stretched the hair until it was smooth, shiny, and perfectly straight. Then, combing in globs of white pomade and oiling his comb with bintsuke oil (the same oil used to keep sumo wrestlers’ topknots rigid), he parted and sectioned it. Beginning with the hair at the crown of the head, he tugged it firmly into a ponytail, tied in a roll of handmade paper to give bulk, and swept it forward to form the central knot of the entire edifice. He sculpted the hair at the back of the head up and over it, coiling it into a stiff loop, with a thin frame of lacquered wood to hold it in place. The front of the hair meanwhile was rollered. Then he set to work on the two side pieces, stretching them round, with plenty of bintsuke oil, and tying them with string to the central knot so that they formed two wings, one on either side of the face. He slipped a thin lacquered wooden band like a hairband through the two wings to hold them firmly in place and tucked a wad of artificial hair inside each.

  Then he took a hairpiece, a ponytail of coarse black hair from the Tibetan yak, and tied it onto the central ponytail of the maiko’s own hair. He combed the whole lot together, folded it forward, looped it back, opened it out and—lo and behold!—there was a bagel-shaped knot. Finally he teased the front of the hair into an arch and attached it too to the central knot. He added a hairpin to conceal the center of the bagel, some pieces of stiff black paper to keep the shape of the wings precise, and a couple of crinkly red ribbons. The whole masterful creation took about forty minutes and the end result was a sleek, shiny coiffure with not a single hair out of place, firm enough to survive a week’s working, playing, and sleeping.

  “Oki-ni,” said the maiko, transformed from a shaggy-haired young woman into a creature bearing such an immaculate pompadour that a man would be terrified to touch her in case he mussed it. Bowing and smiling, she slipped out of the shop.

  Joining the Geisha Family

  For Harumi, the first serious decision of her career was whether she should go through with misedashi, the three-day debut to become a maiko, or whether she should leave. Until that point the costs the house mother had incurred in training and housing her were not exorbitant. But the debut itself was expensive; and thereafter the costs of classes, kimonos, makeup, and regular trips to the hairdresser, not to mention pocket money and other living expenses, would amount to a huge sum. If she wanted to drop out, this was the moment to do so. Otherwise she would be committed to the maiko life for the next five years. It was a big decision for a child of fourteen to make.

  Many of her friends had already discovered that it was not the glamorous life they were expecting and had dropped out. As Haruta, the house mother, put it, “The flower and willow world runs according to strict rules, like Japan in the old days. At home, children are free. Here they are not free. I tell them, try it for a year, but most of them give up within three months. They’re children, they don’t understand properly.”

  “It is much tougher than I expected,” said Harumi. “From the outside maiko look so pretty. But when you have entered this world, you discover what a hard life it is. Ten of us started at the same time. Six have left. I feel lonely without them.”

  For Harumi there was never any question. If she had been planning to leave, she would have left long before. Besides, she had already been enchanted by her first taste of stepping out, painted and dressed as the epitome of feminine beauty. Despite all the discipline and hard work, it was still every girl’s dream, an eternity of dressing up.

  Before her debut, there was an important rite of passage to be undergone. In order to be initiated as a full member of the geisha family, Harumi needed to be adopted by an “older sister,” a senior maiko or a geisha who would be her mentor, teach her the basics of the geisha lifestyle, keep an eye on her progress with dancing and music, and, most important, shoulder the responsibility if she made a mistake. For a maiko it is a weighty deterrent against breaking the rules if she knows that it is her “older sister” rather than herself who will take the blame.

  She would also be given a professional name; until then, she had been called by the name she had been born with. Like a surname, which shows one’s link to the family of one’s birth, her professional name would show which geisha family she belonged to and in particular her relationship with her “older sister.” The older sister of Haru-mi—whose name means “Spring Beauty”—is Haru-ka, “Spring Flower,” the senior maiko of the Haru-ta, “Spring Field,” house.

  Women who were maiko thirty or forty years ago can remember petitioning a particularly famous maiko or geisha and begging to be taken on as her younger sister. Those who succeeded in being adopted by a ravishingly beautiful geisha or one of the top dancers could be sure that they would be introduced at the best teahouses, where they could bask in her reflected glory. For an ambitious maiko, this is still the way to ensure a brilliant career. Similarly, geisha might watch out for promising maiko, either particularly lovely or particularly talented at dancing, and take them under their wing.

  Most maiko, however, are content to leave the choice of older sister to their house mother. Haruta, the mother of Haruta geisha house, told me, “You need someone who has common sense. It’s like bringing up a child. She has
to be strict with her, like a parent. Sometimes I choose a maiko, sometimes a geisha; but I always choose from the girls I’ve reared myself at the Haruta house.”

  The moment of transition was marked by a ceremony which took place on an auspicious day chosen by a fortune teller au fait with the omens. Called san-san-kudo, “three times three, nine times,” it is exactly the same as the most solemn and binding part of the Japanese wedding ceremony, a bit like the exchange of rings in the West. It was almost as if Harumi was marrying into the geisha community, in the same way as a nun marries into the church. Like a nun, henceforth if Harumi wished to marry she would have to give up her geisha vocation.

  Dressed in all her finery, her hair tricked out with combs, ribbons, hairpins, ornaments, and silk flowers, her face painted to doll-like perfection, wearing a formal black kimono, she knelt solemnly beside Haruka in a tatami room in the geisha house. First Haruka took a small red-lacquered saucer brimming with saké and drank it in three sips, then passed it to the maid to refill. Next Harumi drank from the same cup. Then the ceremony was repeated with a middle-size saucer, then a large one—three saké cups, three sips from each.

  The following day was the beginning of Harumi’s debut. For three days she was the star of the entire district. Every waking second she was on display as she paraded the streets trailed by photographers, meeting everyone, sliding open teahouse doors, bowing again and again, piping, “Tanomo, okasan, oki-ni . . . ,” “Asking your favor, mother, thank you . . .” The house mothers gave her gifts of money in envelopes which the dresser or Haruta—whoever happened to be with her—tucked away in a capacious sleeve. Each contained 10,000 to 20,000 yen, $100 to $200. Multiplied by the number of houses in the district, it came to a sizable amount of money, though it was still only a small contribution toward the exorbitant costs of the misedashi. In the evening there was party after party and most of the customers too gave her sizable tips. By the end of all the meeting, greeting, and partying she was completely exhausted.

  Living in the same house, Haruka really was like an older sister to Harumi. At eighteen, she had nearly completed her maiko training. She kept an eye on Harumi’s progress, helping her master the minute rules and customs which determine every second of life in the geisha districts. A few days earlier, there had been a small concert at the Kaburenjo where the maiko displayed their musical skills, particularly in drumming. It was an important occasion for Harumi. In the morning, Haruka took her from teahouse to teahouse to greet the teahouse owners and the ancient “older sisters” who would make up the audience and beg their indulgence.

  “The timing is so hard,” piped Harumi in her little-girl voice. “If you arrive too early they scold you. If you speak too softly, they scold you. Haruka taught me about that.”

  “If I become a geisha and have my own apartment, Harumi will come every two or three days to visit,” Haruka told me in firm, responsible, big sister tones. “It’s not like being friends. It’s a special relationship.”

  Graduation:

  The Collar-Changing Ceremony

  Downstairs in the living room, the nerve center of the house, the witching hour was fast approaching. The lapdog, now confined to a large cage, yapped hysterically, the television blared, and a roomful of ex-geisha sat laughing and chatting. One, in her thirties and married, bounced a large baby on her knee, crooning in English in my honor, “Hap-pee, hap-pee.” Haruta, the large, gregarious house mother, was on the phone, juggling a timetable covered in multicolored scribbles and a book of phone numbers.

  “We need a shamisen player for tomorrow night,” she barked. “No, no, she’ll be busy . . . No, not that one either, she’s not good at keeping up a conversation. We need someone who can play the shamisen and knows how to chat too.”

  Harumi disappeared into the kitchen to have a quick meal of boiled beef on rice. Geisha and maiko ate twice a day, at twelve, after classes, and at four, before getting ready for the evening’s parties. They might drink with the guests. In fact they were expected to; a geisha who did not drink was almost a contradiction in terms. But they never ate with them. Thus it was important to eat before starting work so as not to suffer too many pangs at the sight of the mouth-watering dishes being served up. If a maiko was really hungry she might snack at midnight when she got back from her last engagement.

  There were no parties that night for Harumi’s “older sister,” Haruka. Relaxing in a T-shirt and shorts with her long hair tied back in a ponytail, she was noticeably more mature and confident than the childlike Harumi. She lacked the younger girl’s porcelain prettiness but she had an engaging candor of manner. Squashed around a corner of the table that filled the living room, we tried to ignore the noise and bustle as we chatted.

  Haruka had her own decision to make. She had already been a maiko for five years and now this stage of her life in the geisha world was nearly at an end. She had reached the most important turning point of her career. If she stayed on, the next step was erikae, “changing the collar,” when the maiko’s thick red embroidered undercollar—eri—was replaced with the geiko’s—Kyoto geisha’s—white one and her long maiko locks were cut in preparation for putting on the wig of the geiko. If she wanted to leave, now was the moment to do so. Otherwise she would be committed for at least two years. It was akin to deciding whether to go on to postgraduate study at university.

  Lots of young women became maiko for five years. It was like going to finishing school, acquiring gloss and grooming and also meeting a pool of wealthy and influential men, one of whom might turn out to be a prospective husband. Geisha were much less flamboyant, part of the dark fabric of the place. Instead of the brilliant peacock colors of the maiko, geisha wore simple, elegant kimonos. Instead of the maiko’s waxed coiffure, they wore their hair in a bouffant bun except on special occasions, when they would don a wig. They were also in much less demand. Customers would ask for a particular geisha whom they knew; but they would just ask for a maiko, any maiko. If she was not particularly charming or entertaining or a particularly good dancer, a geisha might find herself out of work; and no parties meant no income.

  Being a geisha was a vocation. You only went through the changing of the collar if you really wanted to, perhaps because you loved traditional dance and music and wanted to take it up as a full-time profession or because you enjoyed the life and didn’t want to leave. But if you did choose to carry on, you would end up spending your most eligible years studying dance and music and entertaining old men at parties. If, after all that, you decided that you wanted to marry, you might well find yourself on the shelf.

  “I’m wondering whether to give up,” confided Haruka. “I like the geisha look; but if you become a geisha, the classes get much more difficult. When you’re a maiko, everyone treats you like a child. If you make mistakes, the customers think you’re cute. But after erikae you’re an adult, you can’t make mistakes anymore. In any case, I really want to get married. You only have one life. I don’t want to go on being a geisha forever.

  “I’d like to marry someone who’s not fussy about household stuff, someone manly. An ordinary guy would be fine, I don’t need a company chairman’s son. The only trouble is, you get spoiled as a maiko. You get used to having presents and being taken to good restaurants. I couldn’t marry a poor man. I might not make a good wife.”

  Haruka was the daughter of a truck driver from just outside Kyoto. Becoming a maiko had opened doors for her into worlds she could never have imagined.

  “My father didn’t want me to become a maiko,” she said. “He was worried about me. He didn’t know what I would have to do. But my mother said it was okay. I still go home quite often, but this is my family now; we eat rice from the same pot. I love it. I love classes and I love ‘work’ [the evening parties]. Last night we danced at the International Hotel opposite Nijo Castle. The night before that we were at a restaurant on the river in Takao for an outdoor party. There were jetties out above the water. Three of us were there. We went from tab
le to table, chatting to all the customers. That’s how it is most nights in summer, outdoor parties. I love the traveling too, I love seeing new places. I’ve been everywhere. I’ve been to Tokyo, I’ve been to Nagasaki.”

  Maiko are in huge demand. Kyoto is the only place in the country that still has them and they are often invited to brighten up a party for particularly important guests at a classy traditional restaurant in another city. They travel first class on the bullet train and stay in five-star hotels. They are also often hired to look decorative and be charming at conferences or exhibitions of, for example, kimono fabrics. Added to which, everyone who visits Kyoto and has connections or a bottomless purse wants to meet maiko. They are the symbol of the city. As one self-styled connoisseur put it, “maiko are the flavor of Kyoto.”

  “I meet famous people all the time,” beamed Haruka. “I’ve met kabuki actors, TV actors, sportsmen . . .

  “You know Masahiro Nakai?” she added, mentioning the boyish heartthrob whose photograph dominated the wall in the room she shared with Harumi. “I met him! He was starring in a TV drama and came to film in Kyoto. They ended up at a teahouse run by a friend of our house mother. The master of the teahouse knew I was Nakai-kun’s fan.* He didn’t say anything, he just called and asked me to entertain. So I got to meet Nakai-kun. He was really fun, even better-looking than I thought.”

  Six o’clock was approaching, the magic moment when the first parties always began. Harumi reappeared, poised and ready for the evening’s work. The mask was in place. She was no longer a wide-eyed innocent child but a porcelain doll, wrapped like a Christmas gift in layer upon layer of kimonos and obis. Her eyes and eyebrows were drawn in black, the corners of her eyes defined in red, and her lips a perfect bow, startlingly red on the alabaster white of her face. Her kimono of light, loosely woven silk was a vivid shade of royal blue with a design of irises. Her thick brocade obi was of pale orange and gold with a red-and-silver under-obi beneath it. Her hair, in the ofuku style of the mature maiko, was decked out with a dangling silver comb and a frieze of stylized silk hydrangeas in pale pink and blue, appropriate for the month of June.