Currently I am reading《Memoirs of a Geisha》. It was recommend by my Friend Pia. This is her favourite book. Last year, I bought 2 physical books. One for her, and one for me. 

This post is not about the book, but about the Geisha. I did some short research about the Geisha, who are traditional Japanese female entertainers. They act as hostesses and whose skills include performing various arts such as classical music, dance, games and conversation, mainly to entertain male customers. 

“gei” means “art” and “sha” means “person”. Thus the most literal translation of geisha would be “artist” and in Chinese “艺伎”. 

Apprentice geisha are called “maiko” (dance child) , who are paid half of the wage of a full geisha.  The only modern maiko that can apprentice before the age of 18 are in Kyoto. 

Before they debuting either as a maiko or geisha, they generally need a certain periods of training. Historically, geisha often began the earliest stages of their training at a very young age, sometimes as early as at 3 or 5 years. Some girls were bonded to geisha houses (okiya) as children. Daughters of geisha were often brought up as geisha themselves, usually as the successor or daughter-role to the okiya. A maiko is bonded user a contract to her okiya. The okiya supplies her with food, board, kimonos, obis (和服上那个大腰带), and other tool of her trade. Her training is very expensive, and her debt must be repaid to the okiya with the earnings she makes. 

A maiko will start her former training on the job as a minarai, which literally means “learning by watching”. Before she can do this she must find an one-man (“older sisters”:an older geisha acting as her mentor). It is the ones-san’s responsibility to bring her to the ozashiki, to sit and observe as the ones-san is at work. 

A woman above 21 is considered too old to be a maiko and becomes a full geisha upon her initiation into the geisha community. Historically, geisha did sometimes marry their clients but marriage necessitated retirements, as there were never married geisha. Geisha may gracefully flirt with their to adapt to different situations and personalities, mastering the art of the hostess. 

In the late 600s, there were female entertainers: saburuku (serving girls). Some of these saburuko girls sold sexual services, while others with a better education made a living by entertaining at high-class social gathering. After the imperial court moved the capital to Kyoto (later called) in 794, the conditions would form Japanese Geisha culture began to emerge. 

In 18th-century, they entertained their clients by dancing, singing, and playing music. Gradually, they all became specialised and the new profession, purely of entertainment. At that time, “geisha”appeared. 

The first geishas were men, entreating customers waiting to see the most popular and gifted courtesans. The forerunners of the female geisha were the teenage “odoriko” (dancing girls), expensively trained as chaste dancers-for-hire. The first woman know to have called herself geisha was a Fukagawa prostitute, in about 1750. She was a skilled singer and shamisen-player (三味线)。 She successes immediately, making female geisha extremely popular in 1750s. 

The geisha who worked within the pleasure quarters were essentially imprisoned and strictly forbidden to sell sex in order to protect the business of the Oiran (花魁). By 1800, being a geisha was considered a female occupation. 

n 1944, the geisha world, including the teahouses, bars and geisha houses, was forced to close. World War II brought a huge decline in the geisha arts because most women had to go to factories or other places to work for Japan. The geisha name also lost some status during this time because prostitutes began referring to themselves as “geisha girls” to American military men. About a year later, they were allowed to reopen. The few women who returned to the gesha areas decided to reject Western influence and refer to traditional ways of entertainment and life.