Word: samisens
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What the ukulele is to Hawaii, the bagpipes to Scotland, the samisen is to Japan. A three-stringed, long-necked banjo with enormous decorative tuning pegs and a square wooden drum covered with white dogskin parchment, it makes a noise something like a ukulele-bagpipe merger. No Geisha girl dares hold up her elaborately coiffed head unless she is adept on the samisen. More samisens are made and sold than any other musical instrument in Japan, yet the samisen industry has felt the World Depression...
...Samisen men do not blame the introduction of the saxophone, Radio or the changing morals of the younger generation. As good Buddhists, they lay their troubles to the souls of the thousands of dead cats and dogs which have been slaughtered to make samisen strings, samisen drumheads. To appease these departed spirits, the bronze monument was samisentimentally erected...
Reporters interviewed a leading samisen manufacturer of Tokyo, found him smiling toothily behind gold-rimmed spectacles, willing to admit that he was the prime mover for the erection of the dog & cat placater...
Yoshiwara Life. Seen from within, the life of the quarter does not present the roseate aspect visible to chance Occidental visitors. The geisha must undergo a lengthy educational process during which they are taught to dance, sing, and play the long necked unmelodious samisen. Further instruction renders them expert in all the formal minutiae of welcoming, supping with, attending, and bidding good-bye to their clients...