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Memoirs of a (temporary) geisha(Dallas Morning News, The (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Feb. 24--KYOTO, Japan -- Gion is quiet at dusk. The streets in this neighborhood are lined with elegant restaurants and teahouses that cater to the wealthy and important. From stone or wooden entryways, there are glimpses of elegant halls hinting at opulent rooms. Shadows behind translucent paper windows heighten the mystery and sense of calm. Suddenly, down the block, I see one: a flash of kimono and white, white skin. I have the urge to chase her. But like a fawn that hears a noise while drinking from a stream, she's gone. I notice a few photographers standing alone on street corners, packing up their cameras and tripods. I am not the only one who wants to catch a geisha. Spotting a geisha is difficult. Becoming one takes years of training, sacrifice and a willingness to sleep on a wooden block every night to protect your hairdo. Or you can plunk down around $85 in a Kyoto storefront and get the look in about an hour. Kyoto, in southern Japan, was, for about 1,000 years, the nation's capital. While the government has since moved to Tokyo, and business may be better in Osaka, the city is still considered the country's cultural capital. It is here that the tea ceremony and kaiseki, the elegant multicourse cuisine that accompanies it, were refined to high art. Hundreds of Shinto shrines and more than 1,500 Buddhist temples are sprinkled throughout town. Its traditional crafts of pottery, lacquerware, fans and silk dyeing are famous throughout the country. And Kyoto is also home of the traditional geisha. The "flower and willow world" of the geisha is slowly dying as their numbers dwindle. It is a society closed to all but the wealthiest clients. Westerners, especially, can't step into this world. And yet, I'm hoping to glimpse geisha life in Kyoto. Nothing like being shut out to make you really, really want to get in. I'm also going to dress up like a geisha. It's a two-pronged attack: stand on the outside and look in; start from the inside, literally, and look out. Simple beginning Studio Shiki is not unlike Glamour Shots, though not as, well, glamorous. The waiting room is stark white and narrow. The receptionist speaks very little English, and I speak no Japanese. But we quickly determine that I can come back later in the afternoon for an appointment. I have chosen the Maiko package. Maiko are young geisha-to-be, usually around 15 to 20 years old. This will be a little bit mutton dressing as lamb. But the maiko have more interesting hair ornaments and longer, flashier obis. Plus, for reasons I can't understand, it's cheaper. In the changing room, I run into trouble right away. I've been told to put on white tabi socks (the ones that separate the big toe from the rest) and what looks like a light muslin robe, the first of what will be more than 10 layers. But the robe has a series of inexplicable strings, there appear to be four armholes and, foolishly, I've been left alone to figure this out myself. I do my best and proceed upstairs. It's makeup time. I'm perched in a high chair, facing a lighted mirror, with a Minnie Mouse fleece blanket spread across my lap. Identical blankets drape the six or eight chairs lined up with mine. The white, white makeup comes first. Then a layer of powder. Some pink for my cheeks. More powder. Red (!) eye shadow -- something the gals at the M.A.C. counter would appreciate. Eyeliner, more eye shadow, more powder. Then my neck. Supposedly, Japanese men admire a woman's neck the way American men check out an attractive pair of legs. So the geisha, those minxes, wear their collars low in back, exposing their neck cleavage. My neck gets swoops of white paint, leaving triangles of skin exposed. Saucy! I get new eyebrows and a tiny red mouth. In photos, one rarely sees a geisha or maiko with an open-mouthed smile. I used to think they were smiling quietly, gently, mysteriously. No, they smile that way because chalk-white skin plus blood-red lipstick equal shockingly yellow teeth. Women's workplace I am walking the impossibly narrow street that is Pontocho, another Kyoto neighborhood where geisha entertain. Restaurants, nightclubs, hostess bars and teahouses fill multistory buildings lining the street. It is nighttime, and hundreds of red and white paper hanging lanterns, some the size of my hand, others as tall as I am, mark the establishments. The area used to be a red light district and the vibe, like Pontocho's nickname, "cave of the eel," is gently risque. It is crowded as I make my way down the street, trying to figure out which buildings might hold a geisha teahouse. I hear loud clomping and bells tinkling just behind me, and I turn, worried that a horse must be charging down the alley. I come face to face with my first maiko. She wears a bright blue kimono, 6-inch-high wooden platform clogs and bells in her hair. I've seen this in pictures but never thought about how it would sound. Maiko may look elegant, but you can hear them coming. The choice is yours Time to get dressed. I stare at a row of kimonos, at least 100, hanging and all tightly jammed together. I dither between orange and green. Geisha used to wear different colors and textures of kimono to mark each of 24 seasons, and choosing the wrong color or pattern would be as obvious as white patent-leather shoes in February. I look to the woman helping me, hoping to avoid a fashion don't. "This one, cute," she says. "This one ... gorgeous!" My choice is clear. A kimono may look like a simple thing: Put it on, wrap a big obi around the middle to keep everything where it's supposed to be, and voilà. But ... Before you get to the kimono, there are ropes and padded towels, and pieces of cardboard that are tied as tightly as corsets to flatten the chest, eliminate the hips and create the proper line, which seems to be straight up and down. Layer after layer is wrapped or tied around me. There's an underskirt that is supposed to peek from under the kimono and an underskirt that's supposed to keep you modest if the whole operation falls apart. The kimonos are all the same length: long. To fit, it's pulled up, wrapped tightly -- so tightly that it's soon clear where a geisha's tiny steps come from -- and fastened with an obi. The obi itself is kind of like the original fannypack: You can tuck a fan and a lipstick and a few other things inside. But the maiko's obi is at least twice as long as I am tall and must be wrapped around me, then pulled up through more cardboard and tied like a giant bow. In short, a lady needs some help to pull this look together. Most geisha have dressers. About eight layers in, my dresser realizes I've put on my first layer, that muslin robe, all wrong. Two of those four holes were for things others than arms -- things like sashes and ropes. She gestures and laughs at my mistake. Briefly, she considers redoing everything. She shrugs. We move on. Season's delights I walk up a hill to Kiyomizu Temple, one of the country's most famous. The leaves are turning. Hillsides draped in scarlet and orange bring many Japanese to Kyoto. The streets are crowded and lined with tiny shops where visiting families are buying souvenirs or pickled vegetables and sweets, many made only here, only during fall. I spot two maiko. They quickly turn a corner and duck into what looks like a shrine. A few minutes later, I see another one, standing in the middle of the street. She clomps, stumbles in her high shoes, and I wonder if she's just begun her apprenticeship. She's with an older couple who take photos of her. Maiko often leave home to train and live with their newly adopted "family" of geisha. Are these her parents, visiting from a faraway town? Closing in on the temple, I spot so many maiko and geisha, I wonder if a festival or ritual is bringing them out. Nearly complete I look in the mirror. I am snow white and wearing a beautiful kimono. And a skullcap. I try to glide about, but wind up hopping like a bird around the room. I look behind me into the makeup room. There are six Japanese girls with Minnie Mouse blankets spread across their laps and white makeup on their faces. I'm having a Lost in Translation moment. I hop into the wig room. Traditionally, a maiko's hair is waxed and folded into a complicated style that is preserved by sleeping on special wooden blocks. In her memoir Geisha of Gion, Mineko Iwasaki reveals that the pulling from the maiko hairstyle eventually creates a bald spot. She and her friends had theirs surgically repaired. Effortless beauty almost never is, of course. It's time for my close-up. A photographer whips me through six poses: holding a parasol, holding a fan, holding a ball. She is urging me on, telling me to say "kimchi" instead of "cheese." She turns my head and, through a series of gestures, explains that I'm supposed to be coquettish. I try. But I'm swaddled in washcloths, trussed up with ropes, clutching a ball of twine and balancing a weighted wig like a Carmen Miranda fruit basket. It doesn't leave me much to work with. Remembering my teeth, I smile, mouth closed. I muster all my seductive powers and attempt to channel them through my eyes. Sadly, the pictures show eyes opened unnaturally wide, lips unusually clenched. Instead of "Hey there, big boy, have some more sake," the effect is more "Help! The samurai are here, and they have pointy sticks." The spell ends It is over so fast: My visit to Kyoto, my glimpses of geisha life, my hour as a maiko. The obi unwinds, the kimono comes off. In two minutes, I'm down to the ill-fitting muslin slip, padding across the black-and-white linoleum in the changing room where I began. Memoirs of a Geisha would soon be released on film. The Japanese I've met are flawlessly polite as advertised, but this movie prompts the closest thing to harsh words I hear. A Chinese actress portraying a Japanese geisha! Faces tighten, mouths tense when they say it, but most, like a translator in Tokyo, give even this affront an out: "Though, of course, I haven't seen the movie. Perhaps she does an excellent job." How would they react to a westerner playing dress-up? Final question At the train station, heading back to Tokyo, I stop at the tourist center, curious what kind of a festival the geisha and maiko were celebrating at Kiyomizu. Oh, it's unlikely the geisha were at the temple, the woman behind the desk says. There are studios where young Japanese women pay to dress as geisha, she explains, as I play dumb. For a little extra, they can take the look outside. Most likely, those were tourists. Modern women, trying to get in touch with a world they don't have the first clue about, glamorizing an often grueling way of life. She sighs, raises her eyebrows, indicates that she finds this ridiculous. I pretend that I do, too. E-mail [email protected] What is a geisha Even before Memoirs of a Geisha became a best-seller, geisha have fascinated Westerners. A few memoirs provide most of our information about these women. Here are some points you may not know: Geisha are not prostitutes, but they're not innocents, either. Their job is to entertain, to help clients forget their troubles. They might sing or dance, but they also tell jokes, maybe play some drinking games and generally try to get folks to kick back. The life of a geisha can be hard, though successful geisha make a lot of dough and are celebrities in Japan. In a sense, geisha are keepers of waning traditional Japanese arts. They sing classic songs, play Japanese instruments and lead traditional dances. Many artisans, makers of the most elegant kimonos, intricately carved combs and the most alluring fans, depend on geisha culture for their livelihood. When you go THE EXPERIENCE Studio Shiki, 351-16 Masuya-cho, Kodaiji, Higashiyama-ku; 011-81-75-531-2777; www.maiko-henshin.com. Reservations are requested. It may be easier to make them through your hotel if you don't speak Japanese. FURTHER READING Geisha by Liza Dalby. Supposedly the only foreigner to be a geisha. Geisha of Gion by Mineko Iwasaki with Rande Brown. She inspired Memoirs of a Geisha, and later sued its author, Arthur Golden, unhappy with his portrayal. |