Geisha: Bigger, Longer, More Makeup

Since last time I talked about Geisha I got so many more responses than on any of the other blogs, and because I personally didn't know a whole lot about Geisha's specifically, I decided to do a longer, more in depth blog. Basically I went to a bunch of places and highlighted information I found prevalent to someone who knows Jack about Geisha.



Geisha
Geisha", The word consists of two kanji, (gei) meaning "art" and (sha) meaning "person" or "doer". The most direct translation of geisha into English would be "artist" or "performing artist".

Dress
True geisha usually have a professional aide to help them in the difficult process of dressing; their clothing is made up of several layers of kimono and undergarments, and an obi (the large waistband/sash that makes up the bow in the back) is more than a simple band of cloth. Dressing could take over an hour, even with professional help.

Training and Employment
Apprentice geisha are called maiko. This word is made of the kanji (mai) meaning "dance" and (ko) meaning "child". It is the maiko, with her white make-up (which established Geisha generally wear only for very special performances) and elaborate kimono and hairstyle, that has become the stereotype of a "geisha" to westerners, rather than the true geisha. A woman entering the geisha community does not have to start out as a maiko, having the opportunity to begin her career as a full geisha. In fact, a woman above 21 is considered too old to be a maiko and becomes a full geisha upon her initiation into the geisha community. However, those who do go through the maiko stage enjoy more prestige later in their professional lives.

Traditionally, they began their training at a very young age. Although some girls were sold to geisha houses ("okiya") as children, this was not common practice in reputable districts. Daughters of geisha were often brought up as geisha themselves, usually as the successor ("atotori" meaning heir) or daughter-role ("musume-bun") to the okiya.

The first stage of training was called shikomi. When girls first arrived at the okiya, they would be put to work as maids, required to do any necessary tasks. The work was difficult with the intent to "make" and "break" the new girls. The most junior shikomi of the house would have to wait late into the night for the senior geisha to return from engagements, sometimes as late as two or three in the morning. During this stage of training, the shikomi would go to classes at the hanamachi's (the geisha district's) geisha school. In modern times, this stage still exists to accustom the girls to the traditional dialect, traditions and dress of the "karyūkai."

Once the recruit became proficient with the geisha arts, and passed a final, difficult dance exam, she would be promoted to the second stage of training: minarai. Minarai are relieved of their housekeeping duties. The minarai stage focuses on training in the field. Although minarai attend ozashiki (banquets in which guests are attended by geisha), they do not participate at an advanced level. Their kimono, more elaborate than a maiko's, are intended to do the talking for them. Minarai can be hired for parties, but are usually uninvited (yet welcomed) guests at parties that their onee-san ("older sister": the Minarai's senior or mentor) attends. They charge 1/3 hanadai (fee). Minarai generally work with a particular tea house (called "minarai-jaya") learning from the "okaa-san" (proprietress of the house). These techniques are not taught in school, as skills such as conversation and gaming can only be absorbed through practice. This stage lasts only about a month or so.

After a short period of time, the third (and most famous) stage of training began, called maiko. Maiko are apprentice geisha, and this stage can last for years. Maiko learn from their senior geisha mentor and follow them around to all their engagements. The onee-san/imouto-san (junior) relationship is important. Since the onee-san teaches her maiko everything about working in the hanamachi, her teaching is vital. She will teach her proper ways of serving tea, playing shamisen, and dancing, casual conversation and more. The onee-san will even help pick the maiko's new professional name with kanji or symbols related to her own name. Regional variations exist, as the han'gyoku of Tokyo are known for being sassy and the Kyoto maiko are known for being demure.

After a period as short as six months (in Tokyo) or as long as five years (in Kyoto), the maiko is promoted to a full-fledged geisha, and charges full price for her time. Geisha remain as such until they retire.

A "Danna", Love, and Marriage
Geisha are expected to be single women; those who choose to marry must retire from the profession. So it was traditional in the past for established geisha to take a danna, or patron. A danna was typically a wealthy man, sometimes married, who had the means to support the very large expenses related to a geisha's traditional training and other costs. This sometimes occurs today as well, but very rarely.
A geisha and her danna may or may not be in love, but intimacy is never viewed as a reward for the danna's financial support. The traditional conventions and values within such a relationship are very intricate and not well understood, even by many Japanese.
While it is true that a geisha is free to pursue personal relationships with men she meets through her work, such relationships are carefully chosen and unlikely to be casual. A hanamachi tends to be a very tight-knit community and a geisha's good reputation is not taken lightly

For more nifty info
http://www.immortalgeisha.com/index.html
http://www.geocities.com/ominobu/geisha.htm
http://www.japan-zone.com/culture/geisha.shtml

President Ford and a Geisha

(because I can)

Women in Japan: Period History

Japan's History is divided into periods, and this link will take you to a page I found about women in Japan's earliest periods.

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/ANCJAPAN/WOMEN.HTM

It's somewhat long, but if you have any interest it's worth it. I was surprised by the pages remarks on religion in ancient Japan (which was almost complete Shinto), "Shinto is one of the few religions in a patriarchal culture that did not abandon the overall form of a matriarchal religion. This suggests that female shamanism was highly likely in Japan before the advent of Buddhism, although there is no physical evidence for it." Even today in Japan there are upkept Shinto shrines and a percentage of the population still identify as Shinto, in which there are still recognised Priestesses. (Whereas Buddism is known only for male monks)

I was also surprised about the haniwa figurines. (terra cotta figures) "One can conclude little or nothing about the status of women in early Japan from the haniwa figurines from the tumuli period. The only distinguishing feature between most figurines labelled as male and those labelled as female are that the male figurines represent some economic function while the "female" figurines are more abstract. These are more likely modern impositions; figurines representing hunters or other economic functions could very well be female figurines, though we naturally assume, from our own modern perspective, that they're male." I thought this was interesting because I had seen haniwa before, but had never thought about never seeing one I could definitely call "female" even though many of the figures have soft features and many have no facial hair.

Manga Terms: What Is She Talking About?

Manga are Japanese comics and print cartoons, conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 20th century. In their modern form, manga date from shortly after WWII but have a long, complex history in earlier Japanese art.

In Japan, manga are widely read by people of all ages, and include a broad range of subjects: action-adventure, romance, sports and games, historical drama, comedy, science fiction and fantasy, mystery, horror, sexuality, and business and commerce, among others. Since the 1950s, manga have steadily become a major part of the Japanese publishing industry, representing a 481 billion yen market in Japan in 2006 (approximately 4.4 billion dollars). Manga have also become increasingly popular worldwide. In 2006, the United States manga market was $175–200 million. Manga are typically printed in black and white on thick paper, although some full-color manga exist. In Japan, manga are usually serialized in telephone book-size manga magazines, often containing many stories each presented in a single episode to be continued in the next issue (like their American comic book counterparts). If the series is successful, collected chapters may be republished in paperback books called tankobon. A manga artist (mangaka) typically works with a few assistants in a small studio and is associated with a creative editor from a commercial publishing comoany. If a manga series is popular enough, it may be animated (into an anime, hense the name) after or even during its run, although sometimes manga are drawn centering on previously existing media, like the Star Wars films.

Manga as a term outside of Japan refers specifically to comics originally published in Japan. However, manga and manga-influenced comics, among original works, exist in other parts of the world, particularly in Taiwan ("manhua"), South Korea ("manhwa"), and the People's Republic of China, notably Hong Kong ("manhua"). In France, "la nouvelle manga" is drawn in styles influenced by Japanese manga. In the U.S., manga-like comics are called Amerimanga, world manga, or OEL manga. Manga made in Japan that arrives in the U.S. however is still just called manga.

Types of Manga:

Shōjo, shojo, or shoujo manga refers to manga marketed to a female audience roughly between the ages of 10 and 18. Shōjo manga covers many subjects in a variety of narrative and graphic styles, often with a strong focus on human and romantic relationships and emotions. Strictly speaking, shōjo manga is not a style or a genre per se, but rather an indicator of a targeted demographic.

Shōnen manga is manga with a target demographic of young boys generally between the ages of about 10 and 17. Shōnen manga is typically characterized by high-action, often humorous plots featuring male protagonists. The camaraderie between boys or men on sports teams, fighting groups and the like is often emphasized. Attractive female characters with exaggerated features are also common, but are not a requirement. The art style of shōnen is generally less flowery than that of shojo, although this varies greatly from artist to artist, and some artists draw both shōnen and shōjo manga.

Seinen is a subset of manga that is generally targeted at an 18–30 year old male audience, but the audience can be much older with some comics aimed at men well into their 40s. It has a wide variety of art styles and more variation in subject matter, ranging even into the pornographic. In Japanese, the word Seinen means "young man" or "young men", and it is not indicative of sexual matter.

Josei manga or "ladies' comics," is a term that refers to the target demographic created mostly by women or late teens and adult female audiences. In Japanese, the word josei means simply "female" and has no manga-related connotations at all. Manga branded as "Ladies' Comics" has acquired a reputation for being low-brow and the term josei was created to move away from that image. The stories tend to be about everyday experiences of women living in Japan. Though there are some that cover high school, most cover the lives of adult women. The style also tends to be a more restrained, realistic version of shojo, keeping some of the wispy features and getting rid of the very large sparkly eyes. There are exceptions in the style described above, but what defines josei is some degree of stylistic continuity of comics within this particular demographic (the same is true with different demographics that have different stylistic tendencies). Josei also tends to be both more explicit and contain more mature storytelling.


Kodomo manga is manga or anime directed specifically towards small children and follows predictable guidelines that you can probably imagine based on the descriptions above.


Why is any of that important?
When we look at manga, we're looking at raw pop-culture. And pop-culture is a great way to look at modern attitudes compared to old ones. If we looks at shojo manga now, as opposed to shojo manga 30 years ago, we see radical changes in the attitude expressed towards and by women. Manga sales are on the rise in the U.S., so these ideas are flowing in faster than you could imagine. By looking at manga we look at women in Japan (and America) now, and make predictions about what the young women who grew up on it will be like years from now. We went from princesses being saved to girls being princes saving other princesses. Men who turn into women. The non-puritanical East is pouring into the young minds of the conservative West, reforming opinions, destroying basis, and forming attitudes towards Gender, Sex, and what is and is not appropriate for young women.

Jigai: Death for Honor

(The wife of Onodera Junai, one of the Forty-seven Ronin, prepares for her suicide.)

The word jigai literally means "suicide." The usual modern word for suicide is jisatsu. Jigai refers to suicide by both females and males including samurai (but usually this word is reserved exclusively for female suicide). Male suicide is usually called Harakiri, or Sepukku (both meaning "ritual suicide").

Some females belonging to samurai family committed suicide by cutting the jugular vein with a knife. The main purpose was to achieve a quick and certain death in order to avoid capture. Before committing suicide, a woman would often tie her knees together so her body would be found in a dignified pose, despite the convulsions of death. Jigai, however, does not refer exclusively to this particular mode of suicide. Jigai was often done to preserve one's honor if a military defeat was imminent, so as to prevent rape. Invading armies would often enter homes to find the lady of the house seated alone, facing away from the door. On approaching her, they would find that she had ended her life long before they reached her.

I found this while meandering through random Samurai history, and I found it somewhat intriguing. While women have been killing themselves to prevent from being "dishonored" since men have been killing each other, I hadn't ever seen anything Japanese related to the subject. That women actually had a title for this duty and were in fact expected to kill themselves seems to go hand in hand with the male version sepukku, being that you must kill yourself to preserve your own honor rather than having it taken away. But while men loose honor through being killed by another, women lose honor by living with another. Which seems to again suggest that women belong to their men and should be willing to kill themselves (as he is) should his endeavors fail. While obviously this would be advantageous to the woman, being that she would want to avoid being raped or forced into servitude, I can't help but think that it still has something to do with ownership.

Working Women in Japan; Changing Demographic

After WWII, the fixed image of the Japanese woman has been that of the office worker, who becomes a housewife and a kyoiku mama ('education mother') after marriage. But a new generation of educated women is emerging, that is seeking a career as a working woman.

Japanese women are joining the labor force in unprecedented numbers. In 1987 there were 24.3 million working women (40% of the labor force), and they accounted for 59% of the increase in employment from 1975 to 1987. The participation rate for women in the labor force (the ratio of those working to all women aged fifteen and older) rose from 45.7% in 1975 to 50.6% in 1991 and was expected to reach 50% by 2000.

In 1990 approximately 50 % of all women over fifteen years of age participated in the paid labor force. At that time, two major changes in the female work force were under way. The first was a move away from household-based employment. Peasant women had always worked. With self employment becoming less common, though, the more usual pattern was separation of home and workplace, creating new problems of child care, care of the elderly, and housekeeping responsibilities. The second major change was the increased participation of married women in the labor force. In the 1950s, most women employees were young and single; 62 % of the female labor force in 1960 had never been married. In 1987 about 66 % of the female labor force was married, and only 23 % was made up women who had never married. Some women continued working after marriage, most often in professional and government jobs, but their numbers were small. Others started their own businesses or took over family businesses. More commonly, women left paid labor after marriage, then returned after their youngest children were in school. These middle-age recruits generally took low-paying, part-time service or factory jobs. They continued to have nearly total responsibility for home and children and often justified their employment as an extension of their responsibilities for the care of their families. Despite legal support for equality and some improvement in their status, married women understood that their husbands' jobs demanded long hours and extreme commitment. Because women earned an average of only 60 % as much as men, most did not find it advantageous to take full-time, responsible jobs after marriage, if doing so left no one to manage the household and care for children.

Yet women's status in the labor force was changing in the late 1980s, most likely as a result of changes brought about by the aging of the population. Longer life expectancies, smaller families and bunched births, and lowered expectations of being cared for in old age by their children have all led women to participate more fully in the labor force. At the same time, service job opportunities in the postindustrial economy expanded, and there were fewer new male graduates to fill them.

Some of the same demographic factors—low birth rates and high life expectancies—also change workplace demands on husbands. For example, men recognize their need for a different kind of relationship with their wives in anticipation of long post retirement periods.

I was personally very pleased when I came across these numbers, and also very surprised. It seems that Japan (as usual) is racing to match Western countries (even if it may be unconscious). Then as I thought about it I realized that these were predictable changes as their economy rebuilds itself to mirror ours. It only makes sense that women are forced into the work place to put away money for their later years as health care improves and the cost of living goes up. It makes me wonder if women being forced into the workplace is beneficial or not. Sure, they are allowed to work alongside men, but the wage difference is still staggering, and if they are forced into these jobs just to make ends meat, is it really liberation?