May 20, 2009 • 15 mins
Westerners have often misunderstood the role of the geisha in Japanese culture, but these women are neither prostitutes nor concubines. Find out what a geisha's job description entails in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom never told you?
From house Stop Works dot Com. Hey there, and welcome
to the podcast. This is Kristen and this is Molly.
(00:20):
So Molly. I don't know about you, but I think
in eleventh grade, maybe tenth grade, there were two books
that were going around, um My, all the girls in
my grade. Everyone was passing around Divine Secrets of the
Ya Ya Sisterhood, which I will just bury and let rest.
And Memoirs of a Geisha. I remember that one. Yeah.
(00:42):
I think they made it into a movie a couple
of years ago, and um, everyone just loved it. They
were like, oh, you gotta read Memoirs of a Geisha.
So I borrowed my friend's copy read it and thought
it was just this magical world. Um. But come to
find out that the person who the memoir was based
on actually we wanted to ended up suing the author
(01:03):
because of all the misrepresentations of the life of a geisha. Right.
She thought that he kind of missed the mark. And
I think it's very easy to miss the mark with geisha. There.
I think they're pretty misunderstood. A lot of people seem
to associate them with prostitutes, right, um, But the fact
of the matter is they are prostitutes at all. Um.
(01:23):
But people are still enamored with this idea of a
geisha because they have, you know, the the kimono and
the white makeup and just look like just like something
out of another time. That that are still around and
they're mostly concentrated today in Kyoto and Tokyo, but tourists
have become so obsessed with trying to get a photo
(01:44):
of them that the government officials in Kyoto have had
to put up signs telling people to leave the geishas alone. Right,
And so I think that people think they're getting this
photo of, you know, an extravagant Japanese prostitute. But today
we're going to take sort of a more accurate look
at what geisha's job description actually is, right, And um,
I just caught myself Molly saying geishaw's But in fact,
(02:07):
geisha is both singular and plural, so I should have
said geisha. So you're on out geisha geisha And now
you know, I'm just gonna go ahead and say that
while we did look up how to pronounce a lot
of these Japanese words. I don't know if we're going
to get them all exactly right, but we will give
it a solid effort. We are going to try. So.
Geisha is the Japanese word for a person of art
(02:29):
and uh. Basically, a geisha is a professional hostess who
spends many many years mastering musical instruments, singing, dancing, and
all of the art of being a perfect hostess. And
that word is key, Kristen. Perfect. They basically have to
be the representation of the perfect woman. Yeah, this all
(02:49):
hearkens back to the time when Japanese women were really
excluded from mainstream society and um, the original geisha's geisha
or actually meant because women wouldn't have been allowed to
be associating with with businessmen like they do today. That's correct, Christen.
So there are a few theories on how geisha became
(03:10):
sort of female rather than male. One story is that
there are these female artists who wanted to steal business
from prostitutes to by hiring themselves out to sing and dance.
Instead of hiring a prostitute for your party, you would
hire geisha. And another one has a failing prostitute taking
a job as a geisha to makes an extra money,
and she was more successful as a geisha than she
(03:31):
was as a prostitute. So I mean, I don't know
what that says about her, but basically I think that's
where the sort of association with prostitution came up. Is
just they were aiming for the same business, right. But
but the government actually set up really strict rules for geisha, um,
concerning how they had to dress and where they could
go in the hours that they could keep, kind of
to delineate them from prostitute. But that only made them
(03:54):
more popular because it made them sort of more restricted,
more unavailable, more exotic. Uh. So this was a very
popular career choice for women, especially when they didn't have
many paths to travel as working women. Yeah, a lot
of a lot of poor families would send their send
their daughters to h geisha houses to to learn the
(04:14):
art and eventually of like take over the geisha house.
So let's talk a little bit about, um, the training
process of becoming a geisha, because uh, it takes about
as much time become a geisha as it does to
be trained as a doctor. It's very intensive, like you
think you left college with a four year degree in music,
try being a geisha who spent six years studying the
(04:35):
arts music, dance, tea ceremony, language, hostessing. That's it's a
lot of study. It is a lot of work. And
when a potential geisha first arrives at the okiya or
the tea house or geisha house, she she first becomes
an apprentice. You have to go through much like a doctor,
you have to go through a period of apprenticeship learning
all of these things before you can do the real deal.
(04:58):
And it's all sort of overseen by I kind of
like a house mother and a big sister. So you
come in and you are in this very uh female
dominated society, and that's how you're gonna learn these very
traditional arts. Um, you're gonna study singing, as we mentioned,
in traditional Japanese dances, tea ceremony, flower arranging, calligraphy, a
(05:20):
variety of instruments. I think there's what like a three
stringed banjo and other other types, and maybe like a
flute or other wind instrument that a that a geisha
might study as well. Yeah, that's the thing I remember
for me. Memoirs of Agnations. She was always playing her
shamasen the three stings three stringed banjo, right, because they
have to be perfect. Um. Even once you become a
(05:42):
mako or an apprentice Geisia, you then start having to
wear sort of prep clothes where these oversized kimonos with
with sleeves that reach all the way down to the
floor so you can learn how to pour tea or
saki without getting your sleeve into the tyr saki. And
you you wear these really elaborate head dresses that are
(06:02):
very heavy, very confining shoes. It's not an easy and
easy outfit to wear. Yeah, you're all sort of decked
out in this and you have to know all these
things so that if you're called on to do any
of them, you can just do them in a drop
of a hat. And this is um. One thing that
Geisha learned that I wish that I could learn somehow
is they have these classes where you learn how to
flatter a shy man, an arrogant man, or disinterested man.
(06:25):
Like you learn how to deal with every single type
of guy you're going to possibly encounter in your line
of work. And that's just that takes some skill to
be able to deal with every type of person in
a society, right, because, as we mentioned earlier, the ultimate
role of a geisha is to reflect this illusion of
perfect the perfect woman, yes, the flattering woman at a party.
(06:47):
So when you're in the midst of your training, when
you are a mako, as Kristen said, you're going to
go out to these parties with your older sister and
kind of observe, learn how to play the part of
the perfect hostess. And then eventually, after years of being
the apprentice geisha, you can become the full fledged thing,
a full fledged entertainer. It's um symbolized and a lot
of ceremonies where you change your collar, you drink sake
(07:10):
with your older sister um, and then you can be
hired out for these parties. And it is not cheap
to be hired out for a party. No, a geisha
party can cost between two and three hundred dollars per
guests for every two hours to the geisha at present,
and for that reason, because it's such a high price
tag um, Japanese businessmen use geisha parties to impress potential
(07:31):
clients and really kind of kick back with the boys
because it's a chance to break away from the more
rigid aspects of Japanese society, all while showing how wealthy
and cultured you are to have these lovely ladies coming
in and entertaining. Right. But Mala, you can't. You can't
just call up a geisha and hey, Geisha, let's have
a party now. It's very it's very strict. If you
(07:53):
want a geisha to host a party, you have to
either go through the geisha house or call a tea
house where Geisha and Chane and the each gates. She
kind of has a booking agent, if you will, that
will send her out to different appointments. And it kind
of sounds glamorous to go to parties and entertain for
two hours and walk home with hundreds of dollars. But
(08:14):
it is a lot of work. You know, you are
working every minute to make sure every guest feels special.
They always have a full clup of sake, you know,
all of a sudden, you gotta stuff everything and dance
and sing and play a Shamison and Molly the kicker
for me. You can't eat, no eating at the party.
You just can't eat while while they work. So they
have to be on point all the time, I mean
(08:34):
for all of this hard work geishaw will receive a
number of generous tips, probably from from these businessmen. Uh
but Molly, that kind of still sounds like a form
of at least escorting maybe, right, That's what was going
through my mind. This, you know, does sound a bit
like prostitution. But actually there's sort of a very uh
(08:56):
rigid dating code in the gaish A world. When you
find a man, it's a it's a fairly monogamous thing.
He's sort of your patron, uh, he's termed the Dana
of you, and there's a very uh specific ceremony perform
where you kind of unite yourself with this guy, very
similar to a marriage, and you're faithful to him until
a time when you perform another ceremony that says, you know,
(09:19):
we're not exclusive anymore. Yeah. So there are options, formal
options for a geisha to have a monogamous sexual relationship
with a client. But it's not like you're probably gonna
go home with the client every night. You don't have time. Yeah.
Part of the reason you have no time, Christen, is
that there's a lot of work involved in just getting
ready for one party. And this is another reason why
(09:41):
I don't think that gays should probably become immedia millionaires
from all these tips and this hourly wage. So much
of their time and money goes to their upkeep. If
you're a living work of art, then you've got to
look like a living work of art all times. Right
on top of the money that goes back to the
geisha house, the geisha also has to buy very expensive
(10:03):
kimonos and makeup and hair accessories to make themselves into
that that gorgeous doll. Right, so let's go through a
little bit of what getting ready to entertain might be like.
It's not like you just get dressed by yourself. You
were putting on these very heavy robes. You've got to
have basically a dresser who knows how to do underlayers
(10:25):
and overlayers and tai sasha certain ways. Then it's time
for makeup. And you know a fun fact. Originally the makeup,
that white makeup they put on was poisonous, yeah, but
now it is It is harmless um and and it
starts with a layer of oil and then wax on
the face to smooth out all all imperfections. And then
(10:45):
on top of that goes the white powder that we
think of when we think of the geisha makeup, and
then you apply the red lipstick just to the lower
lip if you're an apprentice, if you're an apprentice ran
once you're full fledged geisha, it's both lips. And if
you don't notice the lip thing, you can tell um
which kind of geisha is a witch based on their hairstyle,
(11:05):
because these women spend hours at the hairstyle is getting
a very specific type of hairstyle to note to note
their status. Um. In fact, some women will sleep on
special pillows have a hole in the middle so they
don't ruin their fancy hairstyles while they sleep. Just pretty
pretty ingenious, I guess, um. But another way I'm like
(11:25):
to tell the difference between an apprentice geisha and a
full fledge geisha is to look at the neckline. Uh.
They actually call the ceremony when an apprentice becomes a
geisha the changing of the collar, because a geisha will
actually reveal her neckline with the kimono, unlike the apprentice.
Because the Japanese fine a woman's decline to be very
(11:48):
very alluring. So there's that. There's the color of the
color also plays a role, and the hairstyle, which again
we can't really describe very well on a podcast, but um,
basically they're saying a man be of to walk into
a room and look at the hairstyles of all the
women and know who is here. And then another interesting
thing I noticed from looking at photos of geisha's if
you look at the back of a geisha's neck, you'll
(12:11):
see a little bit of skin that they leave, um
without the white makeup on it, just below the neckline.
I thought was kind of looked like almost two triangles
right below or sorry, right below their hairline on their neckline. Now,
isn't this description getting ready present and one of your
favorite books Kristen? Well, Molly, In fact, it is. There's
(12:32):
a lot of details on the of this in Memoirs
of a Geisha, which, as we mentioned, it's you know,
it's not exactly uh perfect history, but it is a
fun read. And if you do happen to go over
in Japan, will you see a geisha today? That's what
the New York Times was saying that, you know, you
can't threaten the geisha and their natural habitat they're on
their way to work. But what is a geisha like today, Well, Molly,
(12:55):
a geisha today isn't isn't that much different from a
geisha up back in the day. I mean, they still
do the scope through the same process of training that
involves mastering music and dance and uh current events and
everything to make them into the perfect hostess. Right, there's
just far fewer of them, uh. You know, in the
(13:17):
height of the geisha period in the eighty thousand registered geisha,
and the number has steadily dropped to now they're probably
around only a thousand geisha left in Japan. And that's
probably one of the reasons why Kyoto's had to put
up those warnings to stay away from the geisha, because
since there are so few of them, people are just
(13:37):
camped out waiting to see the elusive geisha going to
one of her appointments. But you know, when we were
researching this, one fun thing that you found is, you know,
if you're sitting there with your camera, be sure you've
got like a real geisha in your site. Because a
very popular tourist thing to do right now in Japan
is to go to a studio where they essentially for
three hundred bucks about you know, they'll dress you up
in the kimono, they'll do your hair, put on the
(13:59):
makeup and take photos of you dress as a geisha. Um.
It's supposedly a pretty booming industry around Kyoto. And for
an extra fee, they'll even let you walk around the
streets as though you are a geisha. UM. So that's
if that's your thing and you've got a few hundred
bucks laying around, you might be able to live your own,
(14:19):
your own life as a geisha. So I think that
that does sort of show that people understand that it's
not just glorified prostitution. People recognize it now as a
piece of Japan's history, something worth emulating, something worth driving
for to be sort of this, you know, beautiful, educated,
cultured woman. And there was an article recently in the
Guardian newspaper that reported a small resurgence in geisha. They're
(14:43):
they're saying that since Japan is trying less and less
to be uh to emulate Western culture, they're coming back
to embracing this idea um of of the geisha, and
a lot more girls are signing up to to be
trained as geisha. It's pretty interesting if you want to
learn more about how that process works. You've got a
great article on our site, how geisha work by Julia Layton,
(15:04):
and if you want to send me or Molly question
or comment, you can email us at mom stuff at
how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics, is that how stuff works dot com.
Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
the how stuff works dot com home page. Brought to
(15:31):
you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom never told you?
From house Stop Works dot Com. Hey there, and welcome
to the podcast. This is Kristen and this is Molly.
(00:20):
So Molly. I don't know about you, but I think
in eleventh grade, maybe tenth grade, there were two books
that were going around, um My, all the girls in
my grade. Everyone was passing around Divine Secrets of the
Ya Ya Sisterhood, which I will just bury and let rest.
And Memoirs of a Geisha. I remember that one. Yeah.
(00:42):
I think they made it into a movie a couple
of years ago, and um, everyone just loved it. They
were like, oh, you gotta read Memoirs of a Geisha.
So I borrowed my friend's copy read it and thought
it was just this magical world. Um. But come to
find out that the person who the memoir was based
on actually we wanted to ended up suing the author
(01:03):
because of all the misrepresentations of the life of a geisha. Right.
She thought that he kind of missed the mark. And
I think it's very easy to miss the mark with geisha. There.
I think they're pretty misunderstood. A lot of people seem
to associate them with prostitutes, right, um, But the fact
of the matter is they are prostitutes at all. Um.
(01:23):
But people are still enamored with this idea of a
geisha because they have, you know, the the kimono and
the white makeup and just look like just like something
out of another time. That that are still around and
they're mostly concentrated today in Kyoto and Tokyo, but tourists
have become so obsessed with trying to get a photo
(01:44):
of them that the government officials in Kyoto have had
to put up signs telling people to leave the geishas alone. Right,
And so I think that people think they're getting this
photo of, you know, an extravagant Japanese prostitute. But today
we're going to take sort of a more accurate look
at what geisha's job description actually is, right, And um,
I just caught myself Molly saying geishaw's But in fact,
(02:07):
geisha is both singular and plural, so I should have
said geisha. So you're on out geisha geisha And now
you know, I'm just gonna go ahead and say that
while we did look up how to pronounce a lot
of these Japanese words. I don't know if we're going
to get them all exactly right, but we will give
it a solid effort. We are going to try. So.
Geisha is the Japanese word for a person of art
(02:29):
and uh. Basically, a geisha is a professional hostess who
spends many many years mastering musical instruments, singing, dancing, and
all of the art of being a perfect hostess. And
that word is key, Kristen. Perfect. They basically have to
be the representation of the perfect woman. Yeah, this all
(02:49):
hearkens back to the time when Japanese women were really
excluded from mainstream society and um, the original geisha's geisha
or actually meant because women wouldn't have been allowed to
be associating with with businessmen like they do today. That's correct, Christen.
So there are a few theories on how geisha became
(03:10):
sort of female rather than male. One story is that
there are these female artists who wanted to steal business
from prostitutes to by hiring themselves out to sing and dance.
Instead of hiring a prostitute for your party, you would
hire geisha. And another one has a failing prostitute taking
a job as a geisha to makes an extra money,
and she was more successful as a geisha than she
(03:31):
was as a prostitute. So I mean, I don't know
what that says about her, but basically I think that's
where the sort of association with prostitution came up. Is
just they were aiming for the same business, right. But
but the government actually set up really strict rules for geisha, um,
concerning how they had to dress and where they could
go in the hours that they could keep, kind of
to delineate them from prostitute. But that only made them
(03:54):
more popular because it made them sort of more restricted,
more unavailable, more exotic. Uh. So this was a very
popular career choice for women, especially when they didn't have
many paths to travel as working women. Yeah, a lot
of a lot of poor families would send their send
their daughters to h geisha houses to to learn the
(04:14):
art and eventually of like take over the geisha house.
So let's talk a little bit about, um, the training
process of becoming a geisha, because uh, it takes about
as much time become a geisha as it does to
be trained as a doctor. It's very intensive, like you
think you left college with a four year degree in music,
try being a geisha who spent six years studying the
(04:35):
arts music, dance, tea ceremony, language, hostessing. That's it's a
lot of study. It is a lot of work. And
when a potential geisha first arrives at the okiya or
the tea house or geisha house, she she first becomes
an apprentice. You have to go through much like a doctor,
you have to go through a period of apprenticeship learning
all of these things before you can do the real deal.
(04:58):
And it's all sort of overseen by I kind of
like a house mother and a big sister. So you
come in and you are in this very uh female
dominated society, and that's how you're gonna learn these very
traditional arts. Um, you're gonna study singing, as we mentioned,
in traditional Japanese dances, tea ceremony, flower arranging, calligraphy, a
(05:20):
variety of instruments. I think there's what like a three
stringed banjo and other other types, and maybe like a
flute or other wind instrument that a that a geisha
might study as well. Yeah, that's the thing I remember
for me. Memoirs of Agnations. She was always playing her
shamasen the three stings three stringed banjo, right, because they
have to be perfect. Um. Even once you become a
(05:42):
mako or an apprentice Geisia, you then start having to
wear sort of prep clothes where these oversized kimonos with
with sleeves that reach all the way down to the
floor so you can learn how to pour tea or
saki without getting your sleeve into the tyr saki. And
you you wear these really elaborate head dresses that are
(06:02):
very heavy, very confining shoes. It's not an easy and
easy outfit to wear. Yeah, you're all sort of decked
out in this and you have to know all these
things so that if you're called on to do any
of them, you can just do them in a drop
of a hat. And this is um. One thing that
Geisha learned that I wish that I could learn somehow
is they have these classes where you learn how to
flatter a shy man, an arrogant man, or disinterested man.
(06:25):
Like you learn how to deal with every single type
of guy you're going to possibly encounter in your line
of work. And that's just that takes some skill to
be able to deal with every type of person in
a society, right, because, as we mentioned earlier, the ultimate
role of a geisha is to reflect this illusion of
perfect the perfect woman, yes, the flattering woman at a party.
(06:47):
So when you're in the midst of your training, when
you are a mako, as Kristen said, you're going to
go out to these parties with your older sister and
kind of observe, learn how to play the part of
the perfect hostess. And then eventually, after years of being
the apprentice geisha, you can become the full fledged thing,
a full fledged entertainer. It's um symbolized and a lot
of ceremonies where you change your collar, you drink sake
(07:10):
with your older sister um, and then you can be
hired out for these parties. And it is not cheap
to be hired out for a party. No, a geisha
party can cost between two and three hundred dollars per
guests for every two hours to the geisha at present,
and for that reason, because it's such a high price
tag um, Japanese businessmen use geisha parties to impress potential
(07:31):
clients and really kind of kick back with the boys
because it's a chance to break away from the more
rigid aspects of Japanese society, all while showing how wealthy
and cultured you are to have these lovely ladies coming
in and entertaining. Right. But Mala, you can't. You can't
just call up a geisha and hey, Geisha, let's have
a party now. It's very it's very strict. If you
(07:53):
want a geisha to host a party, you have to
either go through the geisha house or call a tea
house where Geisha and Chane and the each gates. She
kind of has a booking agent, if you will, that
will send her out to different appointments. And it kind
of sounds glamorous to go to parties and entertain for
two hours and walk home with hundreds of dollars. But
(08:14):
it is a lot of work. You know, you are
working every minute to make sure every guest feels special.
They always have a full clup of sake, you know,
all of a sudden, you gotta stuff everything and dance
and sing and play a Shamison and Molly the kicker
for me. You can't eat, no eating at the party.
You just can't eat while while they work. So they
have to be on point all the time, I mean
(08:34):
for all of this hard work geishaw will receive a
number of generous tips, probably from from these businessmen. Uh
but Molly, that kind of still sounds like a form
of at least escorting maybe, right, That's what was going
through my mind. This, you know, does sound a bit
like prostitution. But actually there's sort of a very uh
(08:56):
rigid dating code in the gaish A world. When you
find a man, it's a it's a fairly monogamous thing.
He's sort of your patron, uh, he's termed the Dana
of you, and there's a very uh specific ceremony perform
where you kind of unite yourself with this guy, very
similar to a marriage, and you're faithful to him until
a time when you perform another ceremony that says, you know,
(09:19):
we're not exclusive anymore. Yeah. So there are options, formal
options for a geisha to have a monogamous sexual relationship
with a client. But it's not like you're probably gonna
go home with the client every night. You don't have time. Yeah.
Part of the reason you have no time, Christen, is
that there's a lot of work involved in just getting
ready for one party. And this is another reason why
(09:41):
I don't think that gays should probably become immedia millionaires
from all these tips and this hourly wage. So much
of their time and money goes to their upkeep. If
you're a living work of art, then you've got to
look like a living work of art all times. Right
on top of the money that goes back to the
geisha house, the geisha also has to buy very expensive
(10:03):
kimonos and makeup and hair accessories to make themselves into
that that gorgeous doll. Right, so let's go through a
little bit of what getting ready to entertain might be like.
It's not like you just get dressed by yourself. You
were putting on these very heavy robes. You've got to
have basically a dresser who knows how to do underlayers
(10:25):
and overlayers and tai sasha certain ways. Then it's time
for makeup. And you know a fun fact. Originally the makeup,
that white makeup they put on was poisonous, yeah, but
now it is It is harmless um and and it
starts with a layer of oil and then wax on
the face to smooth out all all imperfections. And then
(10:45):
on top of that goes the white powder that we
think of when we think of the geisha makeup, and
then you apply the red lipstick just to the lower
lip if you're an apprentice, if you're an apprentice ran
once you're full fledged geisha, it's both lips. And if
you don't notice the lip thing, you can tell um
which kind of geisha is a witch based on their hairstyle,
(11:05):
because these women spend hours at the hairstyle is getting
a very specific type of hairstyle to note to note
their status. Um. In fact, some women will sleep on
special pillows have a hole in the middle so they
don't ruin their fancy hairstyles while they sleep. Just pretty
pretty ingenious, I guess, um. But another way I'm like
(11:25):
to tell the difference between an apprentice geisha and a
full fledge geisha is to look at the neckline. Uh.
They actually call the ceremony when an apprentice becomes a
geisha the changing of the collar, because a geisha will
actually reveal her neckline with the kimono, unlike the apprentice.
Because the Japanese fine a woman's decline to be very
(11:48):
very alluring. So there's that. There's the color of the
color also plays a role, and the hairstyle, which again
we can't really describe very well on a podcast, but um,
basically they're saying a man be of to walk into
a room and look at the hairstyles of all the
women and know who is here. And then another interesting
thing I noticed from looking at photos of geisha's if
you look at the back of a geisha's neck, you'll
(12:11):
see a little bit of skin that they leave, um
without the white makeup on it, just below the neckline.
I thought was kind of looked like almost two triangles
right below or sorry, right below their hairline on their neckline. Now,
isn't this description getting ready present and one of your
favorite books Kristen? Well, Molly, In fact, it is. There's
(12:32):
a lot of details on the of this in Memoirs
of a Geisha, which, as we mentioned, it's you know,
it's not exactly uh perfect history, but it is a
fun read. And if you do happen to go over
in Japan, will you see a geisha today? That's what
the New York Times was saying that, you know, you
can't threaten the geisha and their natural habitat they're on
their way to work. But what is a geisha like today, Well, Molly,
(12:55):
a geisha today isn't isn't that much different from a
geisha up back in the day. I mean, they still
do the scope through the same process of training that
involves mastering music and dance and uh current events and
everything to make them into the perfect hostess. Right, there's
just far fewer of them, uh. You know, in the
(13:17):
height of the geisha period in the eighty thousand registered geisha,
and the number has steadily dropped to now they're probably
around only a thousand geisha left in Japan. And that's
probably one of the reasons why Kyoto's had to put
up those warnings to stay away from the geisha, because
since there are so few of them, people are just
(13:37):
camped out waiting to see the elusive geisha going to
one of her appointments. But you know, when we were
researching this, one fun thing that you found is, you know,
if you're sitting there with your camera, be sure you've
got like a real geisha in your site. Because a
very popular tourist thing to do right now in Japan
is to go to a studio where they essentially for
three hundred bucks about you know, they'll dress you up
in the kimono, they'll do your hair, put on the
(13:59):
makeup and take photos of you dress as a geisha. Um.
It's supposedly a pretty booming industry around Kyoto. And for
an extra fee, they'll even let you walk around the
streets as though you are a geisha. UM. So that's
if that's your thing and you've got a few hundred
bucks laying around, you might be able to live your own,
(14:19):
your own life as a geisha. So I think that
that does sort of show that people understand that it's
not just glorified prostitution. People recognize it now as a
piece of Japan's history, something worth emulating, something worth driving
for to be sort of this, you know, beautiful, educated,
cultured woman. And there was an article recently in the
Guardian newspaper that reported a small resurgence in geisha. They're
(14:43):
they're saying that since Japan is trying less and less
to be uh to emulate Western culture, they're coming back
to embracing this idea um of of the geisha, and
a lot more girls are signing up to to be
trained as geisha. It's pretty interesting if you want to
learn more about how that process works. You've got a
great article on our site, how geisha work by Julia Layton,
(15:04):
and if you want to send me or Molly question
or comment, you can email us at mom stuff at
how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics, is that how stuff works dot com.
Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
the how stuff works dot com home page. Brought to
(15:31):
you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
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