Aug 04, 2003 08:50 PM
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(Updated Aug 04, 2003 09:24 PM)
“Nobu-san is a fine man. Are you suggesting you’d be ashamed to have him for a danna?” she asked.
“No ma’am, I don’t mean it that way. I’m just wondering…”
“Very well. Then I have only two things to say to you. First, you’re a fourteen-year-old girl with no reputation whatever. You’ll be very fortunate ever to become a geisha with sufficient status for a man like Nobu to consider proposing himself as your danna. Secondly, Nobu-san has never found a geisha he likes well enough to take as a mistress. If you’re the first, I expect you to feel very flattered.
This and other such insightful paragraphs delve us into the intriguing world of the Geisha’s and how?
The memoirs are of a young girl Chiyo-Chan of 6, in a Japanese fishing village, who along with her elder sister Satsu is unceremoniously taken away from her ailing mother by a well-meaning but misguided neighbour. The younger and better looking Chiyo is taken to an Okiyo, where geisha are trained, in the bastion city of Gion, while her awkward sister is sold to a brothel. The Okiyo is run by some matronly characters whom everyone refers to as Granny, Mother and Aunty. They rechristen Chiyo as ‘Sayuri’ and from that moment onwards the book picks up pace. We follow Sayuri’s adventures as she tries her best to please everyone and at one moment even try to run away from the city with her estranged sister. Matters are complicated by a resident Geisha of the Okiyo called Hatsumomo, always trying to land Sayuri in trouble, and sad is the way in which Sayuri vainly tries to develop a friendship with her companion Pumpkin, named so for her plump looks. Her life takes a turn when once while crying on the streets, she’s shown kindness by a stranger and she falls in love with him. From that instance she dedicates her whole life to becoming a Geisha and the book wonderfully follows her mind and soul through various events, in the dramatic way she loses her virginity, her blooming into a popular Geisha like a late spring flower, the general apathy towards them during World War 2 and finally her getting the man she loves when she’s on the verge of losing him.
The book delights you in its development of characters, its vivid description of events and more so in unfolding the delicate nuances of a Geisha’s life as they rise into high society. A brilliant touch by the author is, including a letter from the fictional translator as a note in the beginning that led a lot of people to believe that it’s a true story. Take it as a work of fiction and you will come away quite pleased but when it comes to the truth, the merits of this book are put in a big doubt.
Tackling a subject like the Geisha’s one expects accuracy in the representation of facts which though the author claims, has been challenged by the same person whom he attributes the success of his book to, in the Acknowledgment and in public, Mineko Iwasaki. Mineko has been the most popular Geisha ever, counting the chairman of Sony and Prince Charles among her patrons. In April 2001, Mineko sued Arthur Golden accusing him and his publisher of defamation, breach of contract and copyright violations. During his publicity tour Golden repeatedly said:
“Ms. Iwasaki was sold into the geisha world by her parents, and her virginity was auctioned to the highest bidder when she came out as a geisha.” “Iwasaki was proud of having set a record for the amount of money her virginity was sold for -- approximately $850,000.”
Mineko refuted this claim by stating:
''I did not sell my virginity the way it was told. In fact, I had my first experience at 21 of my own free will and no money was involved. It was at the Astoria Hotel in New York.”
Golden always maintained that the plaintiff and Sayuri, protagonist of his novel, are different people. He claimed there was no confidentiality agreement and that she agreed to let him record their discussions, during which she told him of losing her virginity. He said:
''Mineko feels I violated her anonymity. But I have a fax from her in which she was requesting more publicity. The Japanese phrase she uses translated roughly to, 'put my face out there a little more, please.’”
Finally to set things straight, Mineko Iwasaki came out with her own book titled “Geisha of a Gion: The Memoir of Mineko Iwasaki”, but according to reports it reads more like a personal diary than a novel.
Disregarding this public washing of laundry, we come to a big question, are Geisha’s just a higher version of prostitutes, as most of the western world would have us believe? This would be equivalent to saying that the Indian courtesans of royal courts too were prostitutes. A Geisha and the Indian ‘kothe wali’, both were highly trained in the arts and cultures of their respective civilizations. They learned dance, music and other ritualistic ceremonies that were imperative to the survival of a community. So much so that it took a person himself knowledgeable of these arts to properly appreciate their talents. That is the reason why both the Geisha’s and the Kothe Wali’s were both patronized by rich scions of industry and royalty. Matters of the bedroom were their own prerogatives and they openly flaunted this right which still survives today albeit closeted. With time, increasing prudishness and the cruel perversity of society, this open display of sexuality was condemned and these torch-bearers of art and culture were relegated to a dark shady corner which stifled and suffocated them till only a crude caricature of their past glory remained.
-Vishal Pipraiya
