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Published: July 29th 2006
The Geisha at Yasaka Shrine
And their many admirers elbowing for a photo -- Setsubun Festival, KyotoSo .... do they or don' t they? This question undoubtedly enters the mind of many a tourist that strolls the narrow alleys of Hanamikoji Dori at night, while a soft golden glow inside the buildings lets them snatch a quick glimpse of those lucky few being entertained in the “world of willows and flowers.” Admittance beyond the quasi-impenetrable gates of the geisha houses generally requires a personal introduction and invitation from existing clientele, and, from what I hear, getting into the inner circles of wealthy Japanese businessmen is a pretty lofty achievement for a foreigner. Being outside the ranks of their potential invitees, I could only muse on how far the entertainment obligations go these days for the young painted ladies. Surely it is fascinating just to observe the geisha, who are trained in the art of conversation and enthralled listening (or, at least, good acting during yet another boring business diatribe …), flawless execution of the tea ceremony, and traditional performing arts. However, after witnessing the sorrowful, tinny music and deliberate pantomime-like dancing, I had to wonder if this could possibly be all those steep admission prices garnered in return???
Given the obstacles to entering the teahouses, I
Smurf-like Archer Girl
Bean throwing at Setsubun Festival, Kyoto was fortunate to have arrived in Kyoto during Setsubun, a festival that marks the coming of spring. (Here demonstrating my severe ‘bloglag.’) Prior to the adoption of the Western calendar, this was the start of the Japanese New Year, and, as such, it is a time for new beginnings. Colorful rituals, comedies, and Noh plays are carried out to exorcise the demons that may sabotage a family's 'good fortune.' Fires are lit to purify the past, and sugar-covered soybeans are scattered on the floors of family houses to bring luck to its inhabitants. And, the unrivaled highlight for a curious female outsider like myself, the geisha (geiko) and their apprentices (maiko) held a number of traditional dance performances open to the public.
These performances, however, were not to be held until the end of my stay in Kyoto, so I spent the week exploring a miniscule percentage of the city’s magical nooks and crannies while anticipation built for the grand finale. I had actually been sent over to Japan by my new employer to get my work visa in neighboring Osaka, but as the visa run coincided with a one-week vacation at the school, I was able to get
Tiny Buddha
A shrine in Nanzen-ji, Kyoto a free plane ticket for vacation out of it! Soon after arriving Saturday night, I was out the door with just the bare essentials in my handbag to check out the Kyoto salsa scene. Since the entrance fees everywhere were about $15, I decided to stay until the early morning hours and get my money' s worth rather than take the midnight subway back to the hostel as I had originally planned. After hours of whirling and twirling with the locals and expats alike, I realized that, in all my excitement, I had indeed forgotten one of those pretty big 'essentials ' in my bag - the name and address of my hostel. What a moron. Walking back towards the center of Kyoto in the nearly freezing temperatures, however, I had my first geisha spotting. She padded along gracefully and almost silently, though at a quick pace, and ducked into the door of an apartment building just moments after I first caught a glimpse of her. It definitely fueled my excitement, though in the current condition of being somewhat lost, it was more like a mirage. Given my inability to speak any Japanese, finding my way back to the hostel
More beautiful color combinations
Setsubun Festival, Kitano Tenmangu - Kyoto turned into a two-hour test of charades at neighborhood convenience stores. ;-D
After a long recovery period the next morning, I was blessed with one of the few sunny days for my walk around Nanzen-ji temple area. Japanese architecture is absolutely stunning in its simplicity and earthiness, making the tranquil gardens seem like a mere extension of the home's living space rather than a separate faction. Beyond the wooden shrines, the trickling streams, and the moss gardens were a cemetery and a spirit forest, where foreigners were asked to be respectful of this spiritual place. Apparently the Lonely Planet's inclusion of this lovely walk has had some adverse consequences. Looking down bashfully at my book, I felt a little ashamed to proceed; however, there wasn't another soul to be seen up there. Though the recent offerings at some of the tombs (including cans of beer???) suggested that local visitors came often to pay their respects, my only comrade in the 'holy forest ' that afternoon was the bamboo that swayed and rustled in the wind.
I was torn between the serenity of this place and the uncontrollable excitement to see more, but eventually it was hunger that drove
me on. A couple more hours of walking (including a woman walking 15 minutes out of her way to get me back on track after a wrong turn) finally landed me in a great little ramen shop with thick smoky sauce and hot slabs of shaved pork to warm my belly. I was a bit reluctant to gear up again for the cold, but the temples aglow at night quickly made me forget my frosty fingers. I often wonder if Japan would lose some of its magic for me if I could actually read any of it, because as it is, the flickering golden lanterns with their broad black brushstrokes just look like art. The best of these was the large grounds of Yasaka. This shrine, which is dedicated to the gods of health and prosperity, marks one edge of the Gion district, Kyoto's nightlife, red light, and geisha district all rolled into one.
However, something was calling me back to the place I called home sweet home for the week, K's House Kyoto. I later discovered that much of the restaurant food was seasoned liberally with MSG or with Five Spice (which contains MSG), a fact that repeatedly
foiled my dining out experiences in Kyoto, including my first favorable review of sushi! Luckily, this hostel is a great place to recover… by far the cushiest I've ever stayed in, with fluffy down duvets, heated toilet seats (nice touch!), bathtubs, a floor-to-ceiling box of cushy slippers for you to wear after depositing your shoes in the foyer, an immaculate kitchen, leather couches, a patio, and lots of common space for an excellent social atmosphere …. I suppose the socializing was also helped by the canned vodka-lemonades and beers in the vending machine.
One of the fellow social night owls I met, Til, had been in Kyoto for 3 or 4 months catching up on his independent study in Japanese culture and provided me with greater insights into my surface observations. One of the first things any visitor to Japan is likely to notice is the extreme politeness and outstanding service offered. Though it certainly makes travels pleasant to have everyone be so unbelievably cordial, Till voiced some frustration in wanting genuine expression after a number of months of overly polite behavior. He recounted how he had one time knocked over a whole display in a supermarket with his
cart. The staff and then the manager kept bowing to him and apologizing to him for the incident, saying how sorry they were that the display got in his way and offering him discounts for his inconvenience. ('The customer is king ' goes to a whole new level here!) As nice as it’d be to believe that everyone is sincere in their politeness, Til challenged it on the basis of reality: "You know what they're really thinking when you just knocked 800 packets of gravy mix all over the floor for them to clean up. But they treat themselves like dirt and you as a god just because you are the customer. Frankly, I find it embarrassing. " Though he had a Japanese girlfriend and was enthralled with the place, he told me that he feared he would become a complete jerk if he lived here too long, since no one would ever tell you off if you were acting like a jackass. (Like the drunk businessman who grabbed his waitress in a very inappropriate place and received an apology from the waitress in response, or the men who sit flipping through hard-core porn magazines at the counter next to
The Devil has His Dance
Yasaka Shrine Setsubun Festival, Kyoto me at the ramen shop without batting an eyelid….)
These, however, are merely exceptions to the rule - namely, that the Japanese are extremely pleasant hosts to the traveler. Attention to detail makes even the most mundane or ordinary aspects of life more interesting. For example, when the Kyoto-bound train arrives at the airport in Osaka, everyone waits patiently in an neat queue for attendants to clean the cabin, and then… .they turn all the seats around to face the other direction so no one has to ride backwards on the return trip! Or the fact that you can get your canned coffee from the vending machine hot or cold, depending on your preference. There are undoubtedly hundreds of these details that cater to needs you didn't even think of, however unnecessary they might be to the core service or product for which you are paying.
A major element in Japan's economic policy was also quite evident in the number of unnecessary workers I noticed. Japan's emphasis on full employment means there are many people doing jobs that probably don't need to exist…someone to open the door for you, someone to push elevator buttons for you, someone else
Skater Buddha?
Cute hand-made caps for all the different statues at Kiyomizu Temple, Kyoto to bow to you when you come in, someone to pick up every snippet of paper in the subway station, three people around one small table doling out rice cake samples. Having been forced to analyze employees ' every motion in the attempt to improve productivity and efficiency for a number of years at ALDI, I marveled at all the surplus personnel. That work experience, however, is what caused me to be a labor sympathizer, so I hold nothing but admiration for a country that places individuals ' needs for a livelihood over creating the trimmest, sleekest labor-replacement economic machines. And, in combination with the politeness factor, it makes for unbeatable service!
With all the employees, one might wonder how any business turns a profit … until you look at the price tags. Physical necessity will soon have you admitting defeat and lightening your wallet by twenty-two dollars for a dorm bed or five dollars for a cup of tea! So I gladly took advantage of the hospitality that those sample-hander-outers offered, devouring the rice cake snacks and green matzo tea on my uphill stroll to the southern Higashiyama district. Though many shrines and Zen gardens charge $3 to
$6 admission fees, there's plenty to be seen in Kyoto without spending a dime. The large manicured grounds and tiered pagodas of Kiyomizu Temple provide plenty of fodder for curious spectators, from the hand-knit red caps to cover each little Buddha statue’s head to the amulets and lucky bronze rabbit statues. Most of the activities (and payments to partake in them) seemed to revolve around bringing good luck or having your wishes come true... a fountain whose water is said to bring luck to test-takers, writing your wish on a piece of paper that would dissolve in a small stream and then come true, walking between two stone markers with your eyes closed to find your true love. Though it was all intriguing, it was a little kitschy, with souvenir stalls set up everywhere in and around the temple.
However, Higashiyama, as with Kyoto in general, has a temple or shrine everywhere you look, so I needn’t move on too far to escape it. In fact the little paths of Sannen-zaka themselves were perhaps my greatest delight - small rolling hills of cobble stone twisting down to the valley of curved black tile roofs. The rain did nothing to
mute the romantic atmosphere of the place, rather, it threw spotlights on the colors that braved the weather ... the dusty pink flowered kimono of an elegant passerby, the glaring orange of giant carp in fish ponds, the explosions of purple in harmonious Japanese gardens. Herein must lie the secret weapon to battling stress. Drinking hot green tea amidst the harmony of the stone, the moss, the bamboo, the perfectly placed flowers and stones, and the whisper of a gentle waterfall, I could almost hear my soul settling down to take its repose.
After a few more days of garden-viewing, temple-hopping, bike riding, and shrine visits - when all the giant orange torii gates and sliding rice paper walls and incense started to mix into a temple martini in my brain - it was finally time for kickoff of the three-day festival. At $2.50 a pop for a bus ride, whose route maps are posted in Japanese characters, cycling was definitely the easiest way to get the most in. My new Singaporean mate from the hostel and I headed first to the temple at Mibu-dera, where ascetic monks from the mountains performed a morality play for Setsubun. Naturally, we
didn’t understand the dialogue but the costumes and atmosphere were great, with archery, sword-wielding, and a huge altar of pine boughs, which was set aflame to purify the past with fire. We took our cue to leave when the enormous black billow of smoke blew our way, navigating across town to Yasaka Shrine with stinging eyes and charred lungs.
Arriving 5 minutes late, we were stuck behind hundreds of Japanese onlookers, standing on tiptoe to see the elaborately-costumed geisha apprentices performing. Powdered faces of porcelain stood in stark contrast to the square red-painted lips and the silky jet black hair that swept away from it, decorated with silk and pearl flowers on one side and what looked like miniature wind chimes on the other. Luxurious black silk robes were dusted with flowers and cinched with broad red and gold sashes (obi), each girl’s costume slightly different but blending seamlessly into the whole. The graceful movements of the fan dance were slow and subtle, with occasional turns that afforded a glimpse of the beige-painted ‘M’ stretched from the nape of the neck down their powdered backs, shifting eyes to the shimmering gold and white poof on the back of the
Perfect gardens
Along Sannen-zaka, Kyoto kimono. It was only after they had given a solemn bow (and the girls dressed like smurf archers had arrived on stage to help them scatter the beans into the crowd) that any hint of a smile would grace their faces. Everywhere, those expensive Nikons and Canons with ultra-ultra-zoom lenses crowded around, jockeying for a shot of the dwindling ranks of painted beauties.
Afterwards, the stage was taken over by performers in demon masks, long orange wigs, and some sort of framed pants that made their hips about 1 meter wide. They performed a drama and dance, with monkey-masked musicians at their feet, and came around to bless the onlookers by touching their heads on the post-performance procession. After getting both a pat on the head AND catching sugar beans, I figure this is the year I should try my hand at the lottery! ;-)
With my geisha-craze now running at full force, I rushed to and from Osaka the next day to pick up my visa and make it back to the Kitano Tenmangu shrine for another performance by the geisha of another district, Kami-shichiken. The shrine itself was expansive and picturesque, set back in a bowl
Expressive eyes
Got a little of someone's shirt in the corner of the picture, but I loved how emotional this geisha's eyes were. Setsubun Festival, Kitano Tenmangu - Kyoto of pine trees with a long stone walkway to set it back from the busy streets. It also had some kind of connection with bulls, as there were bull statues slung with ribbons all over the grounds.
This quaint location and the smaller, more intimate elevated stage was perfect, as the apprentices (maiko) were performing their ‘graduation’ dances. Starting around age 15, the girls start their 3 year training in the arts of dance, shamisen-playing, or song, as well as the art of transformation with makeup, gorgeous costumes, and the correct mannerisms. Upon completion, they become geisha, wear simpler robes, cut their hair and usually begin to wear a wig (which is rumored to cost up to $5000). As such, each maiko came out to perform individually before they joined in a group dance. They seemed to have perfected that subtle allure with their sorrowful, expressive eyes, and these kimonos were even more beautiful, full of deep, rich colors.
My all-too-short vacation in a city that far surpassed my lofty expectations was swiftly coming to a close, but I still hadn’t had much time to find the answer to my initial question. Luckily, a perusal of some of
the hostel’s reading material about and by former geishas gave me what I was looking for... Word has it that prostitution with the clients is long a thing of the past, as is moving in to the house of a wealthy sponsor. Nowadays it is rarer to have one singular sponsor, as the total costs amount to well over a million dollars. However, the wealthy male patrons still exist, (the biggest clients being corporations and politicians), and most geisha hold long-lasting relationships with them for both economic and emotional reasons. A former geisha alluded to the fact that they may be having sexual relationships with a patron, but that it is a private affair - a real romantic relationship - that is not best thought of as prostitution. While the geishas still confront the task of preserving traditional art and culture in an ever-modernizing Japan, perhaps in the spirit of things, the hope for a prestigious benefactor hasn’t changed all that much. As another Kyoto citizen remarked, many of today’s geisha-hopefuls are “ambitious girls who think that in this way they will meet and have dinner with important people, and maybe have a chance to marry someone wealthy.”
So,
is it an elaborate and decadent scheme for a high-society marriage, or art in its purest form? I’m still undecided. Regardless, the end result is a preservation of traditional art in this cultural mecca they call Kyoto, the city in which the ever-modernizing Japanese themselves (and this wide-eyed and breathless gaijin) go to discover the heart of old Japan.
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The Travel Camel
Shane Dallas
Of Prose and Pics
Beautifully written entry with lucid descriptions - the photos complement the words very well. Has really enthused me about my impending visit to Kyoto - so thank you!