To me, nothing embodies ancient Kyoto
better than its geisha.
They are the keepers of tradition
a living, breathing link to the old ways.
And at Kyoto’s Movie Studio
tourists pay top dollar to get made up like a geisha
for an afternoon.
This may look uncomfortable, but it could be worse.
The geisha used to whiten their skin
with nightingale droppings,
and a powder called oshiroi
- which gave them lead poisoning.
They’re still not supposed to smile
because their teeth look yellow next to that white skin.
Geisha, they tell me,
were once on the cutting edge of style…
the social trendsetters of Japan.
Then they gradually realized that they were losing out
to western fads and fashions,
and decided to invent themselves
as the keepers of the ancient ways.
The geisha community is the only place where women are
not the weaker sex.
Why?
Because deep down, geisha do not need men.
They’re not waitresses and they’re DEFINITELY not prostitutes.
they are a form of social oil
whose job it is to ensure that relationships among their clients
are smooth and conflict-free.
But for a lot of Japanese I talked to
geisha are neither good nor bad.
They're just… irrelevant.
That’s gotta feel good.
But for these women, it was just a passing fancy.
To be a real geisha takes a life-long commitment to training and discipline.
And as it turns out
the truth about the mysterious Willow World
is not at all what I expect.
Koubai-san is 63.
She has no children
and has been a geisha since the age of 21.
She lives in a resort town just outside of Kobe.
Aside from Kyoto,where they’re supported by a government subsidy
the geisha are having a hard time making ends meet.
Koubai-san became a geisha because she loved to sing and dance
ever since the age of four.
She tells me that she’s not beautiful
but that just makes her practice harder on her shamisen.
Geisha normally don’t marry
which really sets them apart.
Despite this fac
or perhaps because of it
geisha are symbols of Japanese femininity.
Koubai-san is proud of her job
and recommends it to young women who are choosing a career.
There’s plenty of free time, she tells me
and she gets to meet high-ranking people from all over the country.
But it’s a lonely life.
I don’t see a single photo of her family in her home.
Just shots of her career.
And her place is tiny.
When it’s time to prepare for work
she has to go elsewhere to get dressed.
She insists that being a geisha is just a job like any other.
But I think she’s wrong.
because when Koubai-san steps out of her sensible shoes
she is transformed
into something larger than life.
A keeper of tradition.
That’s quite a legacy.