"The greatest geisha in all of Japan has died in Tokyo."
One day in July 1996, an old man in a hospital in Tokyo, Japan, slowly closed his eyes and ended his life.
The next day, newspapers across Japan published the news of her death. The old man's name is Haru Kato, and she was once a popular "legendary geisha" in Japanese society.
Kato Haru received countless celebrities in politics and business in her lifetime, and she did not even marry for the rest of her life.
But despite the praise of Kato haru in the Japanese press, nothing can change the reality that the days of Japanese geisha are gone.
Why Japanese geisha, once a sign of deep bonding with Japanese culture, has gradually declined in recent years.
Why does Japan's geisha culture flourish, and how many unknown secrets and heartaches are hidden behind the bright appearance of Japanese geisha?
Japanese geisha
To understand these questions, we must look back at the background of the emergence of Japanese geisha and the great revival.
I. "Dolls" in the Dark Shogunate
In 1603, the Japanese general Tokugawa Ieyasu monopolized power, and for a while no one in the entire court dared to compete with him for power, even the Japanese emperor had to fear him for three points.
In order to better control the military and political power throughout Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu built the Tokugawa shogunate in Edo, Japan (present-day Tokyo) to achieve his goals.
On the other hand, in order to strengthen the control of people's behavior and thoughts. The Tokugawa shogunate deliberately promulgated the Samurai Dharma in 1615.
In this law, the shogunate stipulated that lords from all over Japan were required to regularly visit Edo for a period of time in order to meet the shogunate.
Because shoguns at that time had absolute "military superiority" over the entire territory of Japan, no one dared to disobey their orders in the open. As a result, for the first time, a large number of foreign "settlers" appeared in the city of Edo. These immigrants will also bring unprecedented development and prosperity to Edo.
(Shogun of Japan)
Since the lords of various places entered Edo with them a large number of domestic servants and servants. These people usually have nothing to do, and they have a few spare money in their hands.
As a result, commerce in the Edo area soon developed.
The servants and samurai who were on duty under the major lords at that time were overwhelmingly men.
Therefore, the arrival of the lords also caused a serious imbalance in the male-female ratio in the Edo region.
At its most exaggerated, on average, only one out of every third man in the Edo region could marry a wife. The remaining bachelors set their sights on the city well area not far away.
As the saying goes, "where there is demand, there is supply." Many Japanese merchants saw the situation in the Edo region and bought women from rural areas or traffickers.
The so-called "Song and Dance Town" was opened in the downtown area of Edo. Since then, Japan's Kabuki culture has officially entered the stage of history.
Kabui
In Japanese folklore, the first official geisha was a priestess called Aguni.
She was born in Shimane Prefecture, Kansai Region, Japan. One year, she went to Kyoto to raise money to repair her temple. Along the way, she adapted and recreated the traditional Japanese chanting of the Buddha (dance movements during buddhist chanting).
When she arrived in Kyoto, she performed this new set of movements in front of everyone, and immediately made everyone remember her.
In addition, not all Japanese geisha are women with gentle singing voices and beautiful looks. Because Japanese society has been "the wind of broken sleeves" for a certain period of time. Many good-looking men have also joined the ranks of geisha in order to make money. So, geisha is by no means just a woman's job.
However, whatever the origin of Japanese geisha is. At the end of the day, it was nothing more than a spin-off under shogunate rule.
In the eyes of the vast majority of people, they are just a group of "lower nine-stream" figures in the city.
Therefore, at the beginning of its birth, the social status of geisha was not only very low, but also often despised and discriminated against by everyone.
And geisha have truly become the "celebrities" in Japanese society, thanks to an American.
(Japanese Geisha)
II. "Crisis and Opportunity" Under the Black Ship
In 1853, the American Perry led a fleet to the Japanese port of Yokohama. At the same time, Perry arrogantly said that the Japanese government must immediately open its ports to trade with the United States, otherwise our warships will complete our demands in our own way!
Due to the shogunate's long-standing policy of "seclusion", many Japanese did not understand what kind of "monster" Perry's fleet really was.
In the end, the Japanese shogunate had no choice but to sign the Treaty of Kanagawa with Perry, agreeing to all of Perry's demands.
The impact and shock of the "Black Ship Incident" on the entire Japanese society is unprecedentedly enormous.
At that time, many Japanese thinkers combined Chinese Confucianism with the idea of "preventing yiyi".
As a result, many samurai from all over Japan rushed to Kyoto, Edo, and other places to discuss the grand plan of "seeking revenge."
(Illustration of the Black Ship Incident)
Because of their ideal of serving the country, many Japanese samurai considered themselves heroes. They often go in and out of some kabuki-cho and maintain a very ambiguous relationship with some geisha.
During that time, there were many good stories of "heroes and beauties" in Japanese society.
As a result, Japanese geisha have become "heroes of the rebellion". Many people go to Kabukicho not to see the geisha perform, but to catch a glimpse of the heroes.
In Japanese society at that time, there was an atmosphere of "self-improvement" everywhere. Even in geisha circles are not surprised.
At that time, Japanese geisha replaced the previous performances of fragrant repertoire with some content depicting Japanese social contradictions and ethnic contradictions. As a result, Kabukicho has also been overshadowed with a political color, and even many key figures in Japanese politics come and go from time to time. There are also many Japanese politicians who simply marry geisha.
For example, the wife of Japanese Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi is a very famous geisha. And Ito Hirobumi himself did not hide this "history of the wind and moon" of his wife. He often talks openly to others about his wife, who has been a geisha.
At the same time, geisha has also become synonymous with elegance because of the pursuit of various celebrities in Japanese society.
In order to attract business, many kabuki have played the sign of "Qinwang Geisha". Use this to enhance your attractiveness.
In order to enhance their so-called "high-end", many Japanese geisha also "sell their art and do not sell themselves", which makes many Japanese men who come to consume fascinated by them.
At the same time, a huge "curtain-down movement" is about to bring an earth-shaking "big change" to Japan.
So, in the midst of this change, where will the fate of Japanese geisha go?
(Prime Minister Hirofumi Ito of Japan)
3. The "Twilight" of Beauty
In 1868, Emperor Meiji, who had consolidated his rule, issued an edict officially beginning the Meiji Restoration.
The whole of Japanese society began to look to the West unconditionally in thought and action.
Many Japanese people also began to dance Western dances as fashionable, and geisha were put in a very awkward position.
Ah Liguo, Britain's first minister to Japan, once said with a slight sarcasm of Japan's geisha culture: "These people put on makeup like the queen of the Apparition Day smearing white powder." And they painted their teeth black and couldn't see any beauty at all. It can be said that in terms of human ugliness, Japanese women are the most outstanding. ”
At this time, Japanese geisha once again fell to the altar, and the business of Kabukicho became extremely bleak.
Japanese geisha, who had a lot of money to make ends meet, began to do some unsavory jobs. At this time, although they still maintain an elegant image on the surface, everything in the dark has been marked with their own price tags.
(Geisha Culture Color Drawing)
In addition to these self-depraved people, there are many Japanese geisha who believe that "total Westernization" is the trend of the times and cannot be stopped.
If so, why not take the initiative to learn Western culture and song and dance?
So the Japanese geisha took off their traditional kimonos and put on Western-style dresses.
For women like them who are both familiar with Western culture and deeply familiar with Japanese culture, the Japanese men of the time do not mention how much they like.
However, with the infinite growth of Japan's "militarist" forces, the lives of all the low-level ordinary people are regarded as grass. Japanese geisha also had to be dragged into the abyss of war by fanatical militarists.
Since the 1930s, the Japanese government has been organizing some so-called "women's patriotic organizations."
Ostensibly under the banner of "voluntary membership," these organizations have secretly turned everyone into both patriotic and unpatriotic factions. If the women agreed to join the Patriotic Association, it would be fine, and if someone disagreed or hesitated, then the next day Japanese soldiers would find the person concerned or intimidate them with weapons or kill them directly.
In short, in such an atmosphere, Japanese geisha do not have any right to choose.
(Japan samurai)
In this atmosphere, many geisha were forced to join the so-called "frontline comfort death squads".
At first, the government told them that they could participate in the comfort activities on the front line to be loyal to the emperor or get a large income, and that they could return to Japan after two years of work.
However, it was not until these Japanese geisha arrived in the Japanese occupation zone that they gradually realized that they had been deceived.
On average, they each need to serve hundreds of soldiers a day. Not to mention salary and remuneration, as long as you can not be beaten, it is already considered a preferential treatment.
In such an environment, many geisha could not bear the torture of Japanese soldiers and chose to commit suicide. There are also many people who choose to swallow their anger, but they also suffer from different degrees of psychological diseases.
These Japanese geisha were originally born into poor families at the bottom of Japanese society, and now they have been deceived and humiliated by their compatriots. The distortions of Japanese society at that time can be seen here.
(Japanese Geisha)
However, the pain of the war was also extremely heavy for the Japanese people at the bottom.
When the war ended, these Japanese geisha returned to their hometowns. Once again, either voluntarily or forcibly, they were recruited by the government to begin serving the U.S. military forces stationed in Japan.
However, Japanese geisha have come to this point. Everyone could see that they had reached the "end of the road."
How can Japan's geisha industry find its place in the new social changes and achieve balance?
How will Japanese geisha change themselves as times change?
(Japanese Geisha)
IV. The "Battle for National Treasures" of Geisha Culture
In order to regain the attention and recognition of geisha culture in Japan, some people in Japan have proposed that geisha have played a unique role in modern Japanese history.
Therefore, geisha culture is an integral part of excellent Japanese traditional culture.
Geisha culture is a "national treasure" of Japan!
In order to prove the "superiority" of Japanese geisha culture, these people began to look for some famous geisha throughout Japan to run so-called "geisha training classes".
On the one hand, they can spread the geisha culture in this way, and on the other hand, they can also use this way to cultivate successors for the development of the Japanese geisha industry.
In order to train a qualified geisha practitioner, the participants in these classes are required to get up early in the morning every day to put on makeup.
In order to stay in shape, many of them are not even allowed to eat breakfast.
The slightest lack of "elegance" between words and demeanor will be reprimanded very harshly by the teacher.
Practitioner of Japanese geisha
Because of the rise of modern idol culture, Japanese geisha practitioners have also seen something they can learn from.
For example, they practice a system similar to that of "idol trainees" within geisha training institutions. Each trainee must endure a minimum of five years of training.
At the end of the training period, industry experts will also assess and evaluate their business capabilities.
If they fail the test, they must also return to the training ground to continue training until the day when the results of the test are finally qualified.
"We were so tired that we just repeated those boring actions every day. Dancing, serving tea... Sometimes in order to practice these things, we often stay up late at night and can't even sleep well. ”
In the geisha class there is a seventeen-year-old girl named Miko Kameyama.
Because of the long-term mechanized training, her face has long lost the confident and innocent light of her peers, and instead has a face full of fatigue and helplessness.
Because geisha makeup is very complicated and cumbersome, geisha students often have to maintain makeup until dawn when they sleep.
(Geisha show)
There is an unwritten rule in the current Japanese geisha industry: a qualified geisha must never have too many emotional connections with any of the opposite sex. Many Japanese geisha even choose not to marry for life in order to follow this rule. It is precisely because of this that almost all of Japan's geisha training classes explicitly prohibit students from falling in love.
Miko Kameyama was severely punished by a geisha training class for going out on a date with her boyfriend.
As a young man born in the new era, she really can't understand why those teachers have an almost superstitious "fidelity" to the so-called geisha tradition.
Aren't geisha people, and don't they deserve a normal life?
In the eyes of young people like Miko Kameyama, they chose to become geisha only because they loved traditional Japanese culture and dance.
If they are really allowed to become a "old antique" who clings to their shortcomings, their hearts must be very reluctant.
Japanese geisha intern
In fact, in addition to being boycotted by students, the geisha industry in modern Japan has also been criticized by many cultural scholars.
Because many geisha are required not to marry for life, the profession is also considered by many to be destroying humanity.
However, on some special diplomatic occasions, in order to show Japan's "national treasure culture" to foreign guests, politicians will still be very happy to call a few geisha to perform.
This can not only "decorate the façade" of their own regime, but also gain a lot of support and goodwill among voters.
For example, the geisha named Haru Kato that we mentioned at the beginning once hosted former Japanese Prime Minister Takashi-gen and Honda Suichiro, the founder of the Honda Group.
Therefore, her death was able to cause a lot of shock in the Japanese press.
However, in the final analysis, this is only Kato Haru's personal success and honor as a geisha. It cannot hide the reality of the gradual decline of the traditional geisha industry.
Faced with such an awkward environment, the rule-makers of the geisha industry must make changes.
Otherwise, sooner or later, the industry of "Japanese geisha" will become a term in the history of the past.
So, how will the geisha industry "save itself"?
Japanese geisha
V. Blurring the "boundaries"
A key point of criticism in the Japanese geisha industry is that all people must eat and live together during training and live a life similar to that of a "monk".
Therefore, if you want to reform the geisha industry, this is a hurdle that cannot be bypassed.
In order to adapt to modern society, the geisha industry has introduced "new rules". For example, members of a geisha training class can voluntarily choose whether to live in school or at home.
Teachers also give students a holiday every month according to their learning situation. Once on holiday, students can take off their costumes to become an "ordinary girl".
In addition, in Japan's past tradition, geisha actors must become lifelong employees of geisha gyms once they have learned. Without special circumstances, they would not have been allowed to leave the geisha pavilion at all.
(Japanese Geisha)
However, under the new rules, if a geisha practitioner has worked for the same geisha for six years, he or she can choose to terminate the labor relationship or open a geisha shop himself.
However, even such "loose" rules have been criticized and criticized by many people.
Some scholars argue that doing so is no different than requiring students to work for a geisha hall for life.
Because no matter how you say it, a girl's most youthful and beautiful time is only a few years.
Asking a geisha actor to spend six years to "repay" the cultivation of his own geisha hall is a disguised protection of the interests of the geisha operators, and the injured are still ordinary geisha actors.
While the geisha industry has seen some changes in the rules, those changes have also paid off a portion of its supporters and participants.
But "old rules" such as the geisha actor's lifetime inability to fall in love and marry have been preserved.
These rules are clearly inconsistent with life in modern society. Whenever people question it, there are always people who are still holding on to the gaps who jump out and talk about "traditional culture", which is really puzzling to everyone.
(Japanese Geisha Show)
But there are always people who want to break such rules and be free. For example, in the Japanese book "Night Butterfly", there is a brave girl named Junko Takakura.
At the age of nineteen, she broke the rules of the geisha industry and married a wealthy businessman in the Tokyo area.
After getting married, Junko Takakura completely abandoned her past life pattern and became a full-time housewife.
Junko Takakura does not regret all this he has done. She raised three children with her husband and lived a very happy life.
Although I occasionally miss my past appearance on the stage, I can finally live a normal life.
In 1995, the famous Japanese media outlet Asahi Shimbun conducted a news investigation into a shop in Tokyo called the AsagoKu Kabukikan.
This geisha hall is famous throughout Japan, employing more than 1,000 geisha at the same time during its most scenic period.
(Group photo of Japanese geisha)
When reporters from the Asahi Shimbun visited the Asaba Geisha Museum, only fifty-eight of their staff remained. As the "leader" of the Japanese geisha industry, the macho geisha halls have been depressed to this point, and the situation of other geisha halls is even more imaginable.
In recent years, with the rapid rise of anime and two-dimensional culture, projects such as Japanese sumo wrestling and geisha that represent Japanese traditions are disappearing at an alarming rate.
Although there are still many enthusiasts to join in, this is only a drop in the bucket for the industry.
In fact, the ebb and flow of Japanese geisha culture is, in a sense, an inevitable trend in cultural development.
Every era has its own culture. Nowadays, people's living standards are getting higher and higher, and there are more and more recreational activities to choose from.
When people can sit in the movie theater and watch their favorite movies, naturally no one will want to pay to listen to the clichés of Kabukicho.
(Japanese Geisha)
If a culture wants to move forward, external formal reforms alone will never work. As a stage-dependent art, the geisha industry can only gain more living space if it captures the current Japanese audience.
Otherwise, blindly selling and boasting will not last long after all.
Conclusion: The great trend of historical development is vast, and we are now standing at the end of the previous period of history, but at the same time we are also in the test of a historical tide.
Whether a culture can survive and where it will go in the future is difficult for us to come up with clear answers today.
Perhaps, in a few years, it will become a "noun" in the history books, or it will be "nirvana reborn" in the new reforms and tests...
Bibliography:
"Japanese Geisha - The End of the Casino" Li Kejia
"Geisha Examination - A Preliminary Study of the Development of Japanese Geisha" Liu Yang
"Japanese Geisha Culture" Wang Huijuan
"Japanese Geisha - Mysterious Styles" Sun Hong
"The Decline of Japanese Geisha" Wen Xiaoyi