Word: gion
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...teaceremony, dance and traditional instruments) atteahouses, and those who were wealthy enough kepta geisha as a mistress and became theirmaster. (The mizurai, or virginity,of one geisha was sold for $850,000.) Although thegeisha's livelihood depended on the generosity andwhims of their patrons, the geisha district ofKyoto, Gion, was a woman's world. When geishasentered a teahouse, they bowed to the other geishafirst and then their male patrons. Economicallythe geisha controlled Gion as well, because themore successful a geisha was, the more kimonos,make-up and wigs she would need, and the wealthierall of Gion would become...
...threat. A failed runaway attempt cuts short her training, but then the famous geisha Mameha takes a sudden and surprising interest in Chiyo and her unusual blue-gray eyes. Chiyo is permitted to resume her training, becoming the geisha Sayuri and beginning her slow ascent to the heights of Gion...
Capturing the flavor of the time as well as of the place, Golden's depiction of Gion during and after World War II is superb. He is even confident enough to have some fun--he includes a wonderful brief passage about Mameha's past encounters with various luminaries who had visited Japan. "She poured sake for the great German writer Thomas Mann, who afterward told her a long, dull story through an interpreter," Golden reports, as well as for Ernest Hemingway, "who got very drunk and said the beautiful red lips on her white face made him think of blood...
...women of Gion are somewhat indifferent to their male customers, the men are all too aware of the women. Many men are boorish and cruel around geisha, and geisha are expected to be subservient to men in everything, but men place geisha on a sort of erotic pedestal. They will pay exorbitant amounts for a geisha's virginity, and the sums they pay to become a geisha's danna, or exclusive sexual partner, could support a family in many cases. The danna is the key distinguishing feature between a geisha and a prostitute; the effort and expense involved in becoming...
...will often expect as much emotionally of a geisha as they would of a wife, without realizing that a geisha's lifestyle cannot allow her to give her emotions so freely. The interactions between men and women seem sad and empty in Gion; so many misunderstandings, so many disappointed dreams, so much pain...