Geisha

by Mineko Iwasaki

  GEISHA,

  A LIFE

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Copyright © 2002 by Mineko Iwasaki

  All rights reserved including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Atria Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  ISBN-10: 0-7434-5304-2

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7434-5304-2

  ATRIA BOOKS is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Photos courtesy of the author.

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  GEISHA,

  A LIFE

  IN THE COUNTRY OF JAPAN, an island nation in East Asia, there are special districts, known as karyukai, that are dedicated to the enjoyment of aesthetic pleasure. These are the communities where the professionally trained female artists known as geisha live and work.

  Karyukai means “the flower and willow world.” Each geisha is like a flower, beautiful in her own way, and like a willow tree, gracious, flexible, and strong.

  No woman in the three hundred–year history of the karyukai has ever come forward in public to tell her story. We have been constrained by unwritten rules not to do so, by the robes of tradition, and by the sanctity of our exclusive calling.

  But I feel it is time to speak out. I want you to know what it is really like to live the life of a geisha, a life filled with extraordinary professional demands and richly glorious rewards. Many say I was the best geisha of my generation; I was certainly the most successful. And yet, it was a life that I found too constricting to continue. And one that I ultimately had to leave.

  It is a story that I have long wanted to tell.

  My name is Mineko.

  This is not the name my father gave me when I was born. It is my professional name. I got it when I was five years old. It was given to me by the head of the family of women who raised me in the geisha tradition. The surname of the family is Iwasaki. I was legally adopted as the heir to the name and successor to ownership of the business and its holdings when I was ten years old.

  I started my career very early. Events that happened when I was only three years old convinced me that it was what I was meant to do.

  I moved into the Iwasaki geisha house when I was five and began my artistic training when I was six. I adored the dance. It became my passion and object of greatest devotion. I was determined to become the best and I did.

  The dance is what kept me going when the other requirements of the profession felt too heavy to bear. Literally. I weigh 90 pounds. A full kimono with hair ornaments can easily weigh 40 pounds. It was a lot to carry. I would have been happy just to dance, but the exigencies of the system forced me to debut as an adolescent geisha, a maiko, when I was fifteen.

  The Iwasaki geisha house was located in the Gion Kobu district of Kyoto, the most famous and traditional karyukai of them all. This is the community in which I spent the entirety of my professional career.

  In Gion Kobu we don’t refer to ourselves as geisha (meaning “artist”) but use the more specific term geiko,“woman of art.” One type of geiko, famed throughout the world as the symbol of Kyoto, is the young dancer known as a maiko, or “woman of dance.” Accordingly, I will use the terms geiko and maiko throughout the rest of this book.

  When I was twenty I “turned my collar,” the rite of passage that signals the transformation from maiko to adult geiko. As I matured in the profession, I became increasingly disillusioned with the intransigence of the archaic system and tried to initiate reforms that would increase the educational opportunities, financial independence, and professional rights of the women who worked there. I was so discouraged by my inability to effect change that I finally decided to abdicate my position and retire, which, to the horror of the establishment, I did at the height of my success, when I was twenty-nine years old. I closed down the Iwasaki geisha house, then under my control, packed up the priceless kimono and jeweled ornaments contained within, and left Gion Kobu. I married and am now raising a family.

  I lived in the karyukai during the 1960s and 1970s, a time when Japan was undergoing the radical transformation from a post-feudal to a modern society. But I existed in a world apart, a special realm whose mission and identity depended on preserving the time-honored traditions of the past. And I was a fully committed to doing so.

  Maiko and geiko start off their careers living and training in an establishment called an okiya (lodging house), usually translated as geisha house. They follow an extremely rigorous regimen of constant classes and rehearsal, similar in intensity to that of a prima ballerina, concert pianist, or opera singer in the West. The proprietress of the okiya supports the geiko fully in her efforts to become a professional and then helps manage her career once she makes her debut. The young geiko lives in the okiya for a contracted period of time, usually five to seven years, during which time she repays the okiya for its investment. She then becomes independent and moves out on her own, though she continues to maintain an agency relationship with her sponsoring okiya.

  The exception to this is a geiko who has been designated as an atotori, an heir to the house, its successor. She carries the last name of the okiya, either through birth or adoption, and lives in the okiya throughout her career.

  Maiko and geiko perform at very exclusive banquet facilities known as ochaya, often translated literally as “teahouses.” Here we entertain regularly at private parties for select groups of invited patrons. We also appear publicly in a series of annual performance events. The most famous of these is the Miyako Odori (“Cherry Dances”). The dance programs are quite spectacular and draw enthusiastic audiences from all over the world. The Miyako Odori takes place for the month of April in our own theater, the Kaburenjo.

  There is much mystery and misunderstanding about what it means to be a geisha or, in my case, a geiko. I hope my story will help explain what it is really like and also serve as a record of this unique component of Japan’s cultural history.

  Please, journey with me now into the extraordinary world of Gion Kobu.

  1

  IFIND GREAT IRONY in my choice of profession.

  A first-class geiko is constantly in the glare of spotlights while I spent much of my childhood hiding in a darkened closet. A first-class geiko uses all the skills at her command to please her audience, to make every person she comes in contact with feel wonderful, while I prefer solitary pursuits. A first-class geiko is an exquisite willow tree who bends to the service of others while I have always been stubborn and contrary by nature, and very, very proud.

  While a first-class geiko is a master of creating an atmosphere of relaxation and amusement, I don’t particularly enjoy being with other people.

  A star geiko is never, ever alone and I always wanted to be by myself.

  Odd, isn’t it? It’s almost as if I was deliberately choosing the most difficult path for myself, one that would force me to face and overcome my personal obstacles.

  In fact, if I hadn’t entered the karyukai, I think I would have become a Buddhist nun. Or a policewoman.

  It is difficult to explain why I made the decision to enter the karyukai when I was such a little girl.

  Why would a small child who adores her parents decide by herself to leave them? Yet I was the one who chose to enter this profession and this workplace, thus betraying my parents.

  Let me tell you how it happened, and maybe the reasons will become more transparent in the telling.

  Looking back on my life, I can see now that the only time I was ever truly happy was when I lived with my parents. I was secure and free, and even though I was very young, I was left alone and allowed to do ex
actly as I pleased. After I left home when I was five, I was never really alone again and spent all my time trying to please other people. All my subsequent joys and triumphs were marred by ambivalence and a dark, even tragic, counterpoint that became part of me.

  My parents were very much in love. They were an interesting match. My father came from a family of ancient aristocrats and feudal lords who had fallen on hard times. My mother came from a family of pirates turned physicians who were very rich. My father was tall and lean. He was sharp-witted, active and outgoing. He was also very strict. My mother was the opposite. She was short and plump, with a lovely round face and an ample bosom. Where my father was hard my mother was soft. However, they were both explainers, comforters, peacemakers. His name was Shigezo Tanakaminamoto (Tanakaminamoto no Shigezo in classical Japanese format) and hers was Chie Akamatsu.1

  Our lineage was founded by Fujiwara no Kamatari, a man who became a nobleman during his lifetime.

  The Tanakaminamoto line has been in existence for fifty-two generations.

  The Fujiwara family of aristocrats historically held the position of regent to the emperor. During the reign of Emperor Saga, Fujiwara no Motomi was awarded the rank of daitoku (the highest rank of court minister as established by Shotoku Taishi). He died in 782. His daughter, Princess Tanaka, married Emperor Saga and gave birth to a prince named Sumeru, who was eighth in the line of imperial succession. As a retainer of the emperor, he was given the name Tanakaminamoto and became an independent aristocrat.

  Minamoto is a name that, to this day, only aristocrats are entitled to use. The family went on to hold various high positions, including court geomancer and official in charge of shrines and temples. The Tanakaminamotos served the imperial order for over a thousand years.

  Great changes took place in Japan in the middle of the nineteenth century. The military dictatorship that had ruled the country for 650 years was overthrown and Emperor Meiji was installed as the head of the government. The feudal system was dismantled and Japan began to develop into a modern nation-state. Led by the emperor, the aristocrats and intellectuals began a lively debate about the future of the country.

  At that time, my great-grandfather, Tanakaminamoto no Sukeyoshi, was also ready for a change. He was tired of the endless factional infighting of the aristocracy and wanted to rid himself of the onerous duties his position demanded. The emperor decided to move the imperial capital from Kyoto, where it had been for over a millennium, to Tokyo. My family’s roots ran deep in their home soil. My great-grandfather didn’t want to leave. As head of the family, he made the momentous decision to give back his title and join the ranks of the commoners.

  The emperor pressed him to remain in the peerage but he proudly declared that he was a man of the people. The emperor insisted that he at least retain his name, which he agreed to do. In daily life the family now uses the shortened form of Tanaka.

  Though noble in sentiment, my great-grandfather’s decision was disastrous for the family’s finances. Giving up his title, of course, meant forfeiting the property that went along with it. The family’s estates had covered a vast area of northeastern Kyoto, from Tanaka shrine in the south to Ichijoji Temple in the north, an area thousands of acres in size.

  My great-grandfather and his descendants never recovered from the loss. They were never able to gain a foothold in the modern economy that was propelling the country, and languished in genteel poverty, living off their savings and thriving on their outmoded sense of inherent superiority. Some of them became quite expert in the ceramic arts.

  My mother is a member of the Akamatsu family. In olden times, they were legendary pirates who buccaneered the trade routes around the Inland Sea and out toward Korea and China. They amassed quite an ill-gotten fortune that they managed to parlay into legitimate wealth by the time my mother came along. The Akamatsu family never served any Daimyo, but themselves had the power and property to govern Western Japan. The family was awarded the name Akamatsu by Emperor Gotoba (1180–1239).

  While adventuring about in foreign commodities the family gained much knowledge about medicinal herbs and their preparation. They became healers, and eventually rose to become house physicians to the Ikeda clan, the feudal barons of Okayama. My mother inherited the ability to heal from her ancestors and passed her knowledge and skill on to my father.

  My mother and father were both artists. My father graduated from art school and became a professional painter of textiles for high-end kimono and an appraiser of fine porcelain.

  My mother loved kimono. One day, while visiting a kimono shop, she happened to run into my father, who fell in love with her on the spot. He pursued her quite relentlessly. Their class differences were such that my mother felt a relationship was impossible. He asked her to marry him three times and she refused. In the end my father got her pregnant with my eldest sister. This forced her hand and they had to get married.

  At the time my father was very successful and making a lot of money. His creations brought the highest prices and he was bringing home a good income every month. But he was giving most of this to his parents, who had little other source of funds. My grandparents lived with their extended family in an enormous home in the Tanaka section of town that was manned by a large staff of servants. By the 1930s the family had gone through most of its savings. Some of the men had tried their hand at constable and civil servant work, but nobody was able to hold on to a job for very long. They simply had no tradition of working for a living. My father was supporting the entire household.

  So, even though my father wasn’t the oldest son, my grandparents insisted that he and my mother live with them when they got married. Basically, they needed the money.

  It was not a happy situation. My grandmother, whose name was Tamiko, was an overbearingly flamboyant character who was autocratic and short-tempered, the exact opposite of my gentle, docile mother. My mother was the one who had been raised like a princess. But my grandmother treated her like she was one of the help. She was abusive to her from the start and berated her constantly for her common background. There were some notorious criminals within the Akamatsu lineage and my grandmother acted like my mother’s line was polluted. She didn’t think my mother was good enough for her son.

  Grandmother Tamiko’s hobby was fencing, and she was a master at wielding the naginata, or Japanese halberd. My mother’s quietness drove my grandmother crazy and she started to taunt her by threatening her openly with the curved lance of her weapon. She’d chase her around the house. It was bizarre and very scary. One time my grandmother went too far. She repeatedly slashed through my mother’s obi (kimono sash), severing it from her body. That was the final straw.

  My parents already had three children at the time, two girls and a boy. The girls’ names were Yaeko and Kikuko. Yaeko was ten and Kikuko was eight. My father was in a quandary because he didn’t have enough money to support his parents as well as an independent household. He was discussing his troubles with one of his business associates, a kimono fabric dealer. He talked to my father about the karyukai and suggested that he might try, at least once, to speak to an owner of one of the establishments.

  My father met with the owner of the geiko okiya, Iwasaki, of Gion Kobu, one of the best geiko houses in Japan, and one from Pontocho, another of the geiko districts in Kyoto. My father found positions for both Yaeko and Kikuko and was given contract money for their apprenticeships. They would be trained in the traditional arts, etiquette, and decorum and fully supported in their careers. After they became full-fledged geiko they would become independent, all debts would be cancelled, and all the money they earned would be their own. As agent and manager of their careers, the okiya would continue to receive a percentage of their income.

  My father’s decision drew the family into a compact with the karyukai that was to affect all of our lives for many years to come. My sisters were devastated at having to leave the safe haven of my grandparents’ house. Yaeko never got over her feelings of being aban
doned. She remains angry and bitter to this day.

  My parents moved with my eldest brother to a house in Yamashina, a suburb of Kyoto. In the ensuing years my mother bore eight more children. In 1939, financially strapped as always, they sent another one of their daughters, my sister Kuniko, to the Iwasaki okiya as an assistant to the owner.

  I was born in 1949, when my father was fifty-three and my mother was forty-four. I was the last of my parents’ children, born on November 2, a Scorpio in the Year of the Ox. My parents named me Masako.

  As far as I knew, there were only ten of us in the immediate family. I had four older brothers (Seiichiro, Ryozo, Kozo, and Fumio) and three older sisters (Yoshiko, Tomiko, and Yukiko). I wasn’t aware of the other three girls.

  Our house was spacious and rambling. It was located on the far side of a canal. The house was situated on a large piece of land and there were no others next to ours. It was surrounded by woods and bamboo groves and backed up onto a mountain. One approached the house on a concrete footbridge over the canal. There was a pond in front of the house bordered by a stand of cosmos. Beyond that was a front yard with fig and pepper trees. Behind the house was a big backyard that had a coop full of chickens, a fish pond stocked with carp, a pen for our dog Koro, and my mother’s vegetable garden.

  The downstairs of the house had a parlor, an altar room, a living room, a room with a hearth for dining, a kitchen, two backrooms, and my father’s studio and the bath. There were two more rooms upstairs over the kitchen. The other kids all slept upstairs. I slept with my parents downstairs.

  I remember one incident with glee. It was during the rainy season. There was a large round pond in front of our house. The hydrangea bush next to the pond was in bloom, the bright blue in harmony with the green of the trees.

  It was a perfectly still day. Suddenly, big drops of rain began to plop down. I quickly gathered up my toys from under the pepper tree and ran inside the house. I put my things down on a shelf next to the mahogany chest.