“Do geisha sleep with their customers?”
We were trying to figure this whole geisha business out.
They gotta, I thought. Why would someone (a man) pay $600/hour to spend time with someone (a woman) otherwise. To watch her pour tea? C’mon.
We were in Kyoto - my friend Suzy and I meeting there to save on expenses and have a little fun. Traveling alone as a woman, you can be restricted to daytime activities. A city can tell you a lot about itself at night – and plopping yourself down in a bar where no one speaks English can get a little boring – or worse.
Kyoto’s a medium sized city. It’s a hot spot on the tourist trek. Most guidebooks tell you that if you’re going to only one place in Japan, to make it Kyoto. Most of the religious treasures of Japan – shrines, shrines and more shrines, - happen to be in Kyoto. And on top of that, Kyoto has geisha.
Looking for an authentic Kyoto experience, I’d found an old geisha house to rent in Gion. It had been a training school for geisha, teaching tea ceremony and dance.
The place had plenty of charm. The floors were covered in tatami matting, the windows covered with bamboo.
Another distinct – and perhaps authentic – feature of this house was its smell. It was slightly more than subtle. Kinda like someone put an open can of sardines under the floorboards. I had burned matches, incense. I’d even gone to the corner store and mimed “smelly” and the act of spraying something around the room while holding my nose, the woman finally figuring it out after my third performance. But that only covered up the smell. And it always came back. Oh, well. Charm. Authenticity.
In Japan’s quest to make me feel big, the doorways were low and the hallways were narrow. I felt a bit like Barbie in her Mattel house – peering in– not able to make it through the door.
Suzy cracked me up when she walked out of her room one morning, “The giant emerges.”
Thanks, Japan. Thanks for that.
I hadn’t done much research before getting to Kyoto. I figured – its Kyoto. There’s plenty to do. No advanced planning is needed. Takayama – where few tourists go – requires a bit more planning. But Suzy had arrived a day before me and she’d already put some thought into it. She spent her first day in the bamboo forest – and I decided to fly in her tailwind.
We had internet access in our little geisha house (how damn cool is that?), do I decided to look for some performances. Something cultural to do. No matter what I do in a country, I always remember the performances. In Budapest – the opera in Italian – sitting in the box made of gold. In Laos, the puppet show put on by the village children – sitting on the floor watching the wonder unfold. In Thailand, it was Thai boxing. Cambodia – a little girl at the orphanage practicing her apsara dance.
There has to be something like that in Kyoto. Something memorable and culturally rich. I did a search:
Sumo?
Kabuki?
Samurai?
Tea ceremony?
And then I saw something that made me pause.
“Suzy.”
“Yeah.”
“I found something.”
“What?”
“It’s kind of awesome.”
“What?”
“We can dress up like geisha.”
“Um. What do you mean?”
“There is this company that takes Western people and turns them into geisha.”
We started laughing – and couldn’t stop. We were using our imagination. Picturing ourselves dressed up like geisha. In white make-up and wigs. Kimonos and red lips.
What may not be immediately apparent to you is – looking like a geisha kinda requires you to be Asian. No amount of make-up can really make a Westerner look like a geisha. You just look like a freak. And the thought brought tears to my eyes.
Then I saw a picture of a Western woman dressed up like a geisha. Oh, Lord – no.
“What?”
“Pictures are included in the package.”
“No.”
“Yes. Should we do it?” I asked – giggling. Oh, my god – we should do it. That would be – UH-mazing. CLASSIC. Can you imagine?”
“No I cannot imagine.”
And then I saw what was a special feature of this package. You and a friend – in this case, Suzy – get to sit on a blanket – dressed up like geisha – and get pictures TOGETHER.
That visual left us with another 10 minutes of laughter.
“What happens in Kyoto, stays in Kyoto,” Suzy said.
“Exactly.”
We let that one go. Those pictures would never. ever. see the light of day. The scope and breadth of the blackmail potential would just be too great. And I couldn’t chance it.
We decided after a long day of exploring to find some dinner – maybe a drink. We were hoping to spot a geisha. But no such luck. We wandered through the alleyways trying to figure out what was what.
Reading all the signs. Nothing in English. We walked into someone’s house. Oops, not a restaurant. We tried to figure out how to get into the little restaurants on the water. No such luck. But we did get some good pics...
We finally found a bar with an English word on it and peeked in. Ohhh….Mahogony. Velvet. Dim lights. Completely and totally empty. It could have been out of a movie set in Louisiana. We’ll go there. But must get food first. We found a place that had the word “hot pot” on the menu. Suzy was allergic to fish, so we couldn’t go with my old faithful rule of not eating anywhere with an English menu.
We took off our shoes and walked upstairs. There were three other couples there (couply couples). The room was set up in a giant square. Like we were attending a UN summit. Everyone looked at us. It was eerily quiet. “Do you think this is the private room?” I said.
“I can think of nothing less private,” Suzy said. I laughed. She was right.
We made our own dinner over an open fire – quietly. The couple directly beside us – a Western guy and an Asian girl – were Australian (which we only noticed after commenting to each other that they didn’t seem very happy).
The dinner was good and afterward we put our shoes back on and wandered down to Daisy Buchanan’s (at least that’s what I imagine it was called). You know when something is so familiar but so different at the same time that it plays with your head? Australia’s a bit like that to me. You can easily forget you’re not in the USA.
Japan – on the other hand – is not like that. Except this place. It was the kind of place where you could typically sit down and have an interesting conversation with the bartender over a cocktail. People who worked in these kinds of places are reliable conversationalists. But not in Japan. Our little bartenders did not fit the atmosphere. They were not – in any way – talkative. But that made it all the more charming.
We ordered a drink and started chatting. Sharing stories. We eventually – true to form – got on the topic of men. Australian men vs. American men, past relationships, dating. And as we had more drinks the conversation got more interesting.
This was fun. Being in an empty bar in the middle of Japan. Sipping drinks with a friend. Having juicy conversation – no one the wiser.
And then Suzy leaned in and said quietly, “He sure has been cleaning that glass for a long time.”
I looked up. And there was the bartender – practically standing on top of us behind the bar. Quietly. Slowly. Washing. A. glass.
We laughed. Even with his ability to understand every 5th word, we knew he had gotten some good value out of that conversation.
They closed up shop at 1:00 a.m. and we went to find another spot. We walked into a few places and were turned away. This was not something we were used to – being turned away. We wondered why. Sometimes we were grossly underdressed or the words “membership” were uttered. I caught a small glimpse of one room – a corner. I could see a few Japanese men. They were sitting “Japanese style” on the floor – talking, laughing and drinking. I bet there are geisha in there, I thought.
Dang. I want to see a geisha.
The next night, we had had the same thing happen – walking into what looked like a restaurant from the outside – and finding it was a house, a private room, required a membership or just had a quiet woman inside the door shaking her head when we approached.
We finally wandered into a restaurant with the same set-up as the night before, this apparently a trend in Kyoto.
We complained about being turned away at a few places and the restaurant manager – having lived in Australia for three months and feeling a kinship to us – took it upon himself to escort us over to a karaoke bar. One we’d have never found otherwise.
It was fun. There was only one other table there. They sang songs in Japanese. And we sang songs in English.
The bartenders were cute little Japanese women and they would smile and clap after every song. Then they’d say, “sing.”
There was a little Journey.
A little Prince.
I decided to lie in bed and upload some of the photos I’d taken that day. I’d been blessed with good sunlight at the bamboo forest. Suzy put on a cute mini jeans skirt and headed out to find a coffee shop and do some journaling. We’d meet up later for dinner.
I fell asleep – my head resting next to my laptop. I was in deep – drooling.
And then I heard my phone. But I didn’t get to it in time. It was Suzy.
She probably wants to get dinner. She’d sent me a text message too. I looked at it. It said:
“I’ve found fun.”
Uh-oh, I thought.
Uh.
Oh.
I called her back – half asleep.
She said, “You have to come over here. I’ve run into this random guy who says he can get us a geisha.”
I heard a husky Western voice on the other end. He was loud and uproarious and telling me to get. your. ass. over. here.
Then another guy took the phone. I noticed the Australian accent immediately. Oh. Lord. I thought. Oh. No.
Suzy took the phone back and said, “Come on over. We’re at Picasso’s.”
We were already locals.
What happened to journaling, I thought? And who are these people? I fall asleep and already Suzy has added two friends to Facebook?
And there was a third friend – someone who played in a jazz band, was from Detroit and lived in Kyoto. Oh, this sounds interesting.
I got up pitifully. Staring at the floor for a minute before standing up. This sounds really over my level for the night. These guys better be cute.
I ambled around trying to find something to wear. Determining how cute I cared to get. I decided I’d wear a black dress – easy. And put my hair up in a ponytail. No make-up. Flip flops. And that’s about all the energy I could muster.
I walked up to Picasso’s and saw her standing there with three other people. Chatting and having a glass of wine. One guy’s name was Peter and he was Canadian. He had lived in Kyoto for 17 years. The other two were a couple from Melbourne.
I looked around and thought, what’s this party all about? It was a peculiar bunch. Suzy could tell I was surveying the situation, “Just give it a minute. Have a glass of wine.”
Then over the course of the hour, I figured it out. This guy – Peter – was kinda crazy. And crazy can be entertaining. The couple from Melbourne – no less drunk but a little less crazy – balanced out the company.
He had a colorful story. And I loved colorful stories.
He was married to a former geisha and they owned a bar (but not this one). He was an expert in geisha culture and spoke at the Asian Art museum in San Francisco when they had the geisha exhibit (which I remember). He helped scout locations for the movie,”Memoirs of a Geisha” and showed us a few photos on his laptop. “These are the cubbies where they put their shoes.”
I’d never seen the movie, but I remembered it from the book.
And – last but not least – he claimed he could get us a geisha for the night.
A geisha.
“What exactly does a geisha do?” I said.
“Whatever,” he said.
“And by whatever – what do you mean exactly?”
“She goes out with you – drinks with you.
“They drink with you?”
“Oh, yeah – they drink.”
“I thought they poured tea.”
“Well, yeah. They pour tea. They dance. They do a lot of things. They’re artisans.”
“But they drink too?”
He showed us a picture of a geisha drinking out of three cups at once. Each one balancing on a finger – pinky, middle and thumb – the alcohol falling from one to the other like a fountain. And then finally into her mouth.
Now that’s an art.
“Do they get drunk?”
“Oh yeah, they get drunk.”
Do they sleep with you?” I said. Trying to figure out how creepy this was.
“Oh, no. Geisha’s don’t sleep with their customers. If they do, they ruin their reputation. And being a geisha is all about reputation. The better reputation you have, the more you’re paid and the more people want to spend time with you.”
“Can we get her to go bowling with us?”
“Sure.”
Suzy and I looked at each other. UH-mazing.
“Karaoke?”
“Yeah, sure.”
We decided to have an impromptu meeting, Suzy and I. We moved to the side.
It went like this:
“OK, if we can get a geisha to go bowling with us – or to sing “Hit me baby one more time,” we’re doin’ it.”
“Done.”
We broke huddle and asked, “How much is it?”
60,000 yen.
SIXTY THOUSAND?
“Yeah, for an hour.”
“For an HOUR???!!!”
“Yeah.”
“Holy crap. What’s that like $600 bucks?”
“Yeah, about.”
“It’s more than that,” Suzy said, using her real math (in contrast to my vacation math).
Still - $600 is kinda crazy. Even if she went bowling and sang Britney – it would be pretty hard to rationalize that kind of expense. Even split between five people.
God, this is tempting.
I mean, you can’t just book a geisha. You have to know someone. And this guy was someone. An odd someone, sure. But he knew how to book a geisha. This is a once. in. a. lifetime. opportunity. I kept thinking of the photos that could come out of this arrangement. Oh, the photos would be worth 60,000 yen.
We huddled again.
“Is this guy crazy?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think he could really get us a geisha?”
“Yes.”
“How badly could this end?”
“Um, not sure.”
“Is it worth the risk?”
“Maybe.”
But in the end we decided against it. Peter was getting more and more drunk. And that couldn’t be good. Maybe with a “money back guarantee” we would have thrown in – but not without some insurance.
So instead he just told us everything he knew about geishahood.
You can become a geisha at the age of 16.
There are old geishas. Walking down the street with an older geisha is considered an honor.
Geishas cannot be married.
Geishas are booked and paid through teahouses.
They are under contract with a teahouse for a certain number of years before becoming an independent geisha.
There’s even a geisha union.
It sounded more than a little odd.
To add to our education, we were standing in front of Kyoto's most famous geisha street in Gion – catching glimpses of real geisha going to and from their appointments.
We saw them sitting in the backseat of a car– their attendants in front. Walking down the street in full kimono – with the little pillow on their back – talking quietly to their escort.
It was surreal. It almost felt like Asian Halloween.
Peter – the crazy guy – got off his barstool to come talk to me. He had been rambling on about women and I had been looking at him skeptically – one eyebrow up .
He told us he had a girlfriend – and a wife. Neither mentioning the other. I’d seen a cute Asian girl come over earlier – covering his eyes and whispering “guess who it is”. Apparently people knew him. He was a kind of celebrity.
“I like you,” he said to me.
Oh, now this should be interesting. I’d had just about enough wine to tolerate this guy. But not quite.
“Do you? Well that’s nice of you.”
He kept getting closer as he talked. I kept backing away, trying not to step into oncoming traffic.
He talked about Western women versus Asian women – how American women were ball busters. How they had their own set even.
“Do you think you just like a demure woman? One that will let you do whatever you want? One that adores you and thinks that you’re a god,” I said – answering my own question. Not letting him get away with his bullshit.
“I like you.”
Here we go again.
I could tell this guy had a nice set-up in Japan. He was an expert in something that gave him some clout with the locals and opportunities to provide expertise to museums and the film industry. But he specialized in something so obscure – so random – that it’s akin to my calling myself the premier expert of grit making in Australia. No one else in Australia cooks grits. Or even knows what they are.
And then I thought - this guy would not function in his own country. His ego would shrivel up and die. And he needed that ego.
There. M-O officially determined.
Suzy leaned over and smiled. “Uh, Steph – you alright over there?”
I nodded. Yep. Just entertaining myself with Creepy McCreeperson.
Then we decided to ditch our new friends – emails were exchanged. Promises were made to meet up later in the night (which Suzy and I immediately determined was not happenin’) and we set out to get some food.
Suzy was a few hours ahead of me and needed some sustenance. I remembered the little wine bar I’d found on the canal, having walked randomly down an alley. Oh! This is how you get into restaurants on the canal - luck.
I knew it would be the perfect setting. We were the only patrons (there’s at least one advantage to being in Japan during the wet season).
After dinner, we decided to go find the jazz band guy. But he found us before we could find him.
“How did you find us?”
“Oh, I’d recognize that skirt anywhere.”
Haha
Oh, Suzy – you have to wear the skirt next time we’re out in Sydney. The skirt. brings. fun.
Rory “Boom boom” Somebody played 30-minute sets in a bar we weren’t dressed to go into so he took us to another piano bar where he hung out between sets. He introduced us to the owner, a Japanese woman, and some others sitting around the bar. Then he ordered us some martinis and ran off to his next set.
When the martinis arrived I eyed them, noticing they were as clear as freshly Windexed glass. Not a lick of vermouth or olive juice. Not at all dirty. I took a sip – rubbing alcohol.
“OK, that ain’t happenin’. That is a very large shot of vodka.”
“What should we do?”
“I don’t know – I’m lookin’ around for somewhere to dump it.”
We considered the floor. We considered the gap between our booth and the wall. What we did not consider was drinking it. And then I had an epiphany. We could repurpose those warm cloths every good Japanese establishment gives you to soak up the vodka.
“Let’s pour it into these towels.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
And so we did – slowly pouring the martini into the cloth – giggling the whole time. Looking up to make sure no one was watching.
Whew. We will now be able to remember our names at the end of this night.
One by one the people around the bar got up to grab an instrument – or a microphone. They were all musicians. Not patrons.
The owner played the piano and sang "It's too late baby now, it's too late...". Then a man sang while she played the piano. Then they did a duet. Then another man sang – telling jokes in Japanese, cracking the other musicians up. Someone played the guitar. And then – finally – the chef sang (and he was professional grade). They asked us to sing.
“This is a little different than yelling into a microphone,” Suzy told me after I tried to twist her arm in order to add color to our little Kyoto nightlife story.
So we declined.
There was only one other couple there. It was like we were getting our own little personal concert. They even sang a few songs in English just for us. And they were singin’ their hearts out – unabashedly – Japanese accent and all.
We were loving it. Sitting there – drinkless – soaking up the experience. Expecting the unexpected. After every song, we’d clap like Americans*. They loved the applause. They came over to talk to us – to take our picture – to try out their English. And to tell Suzy they loved her (@ 2:50).
After a while of this we decided it was time to go home. The accumulation of so much randomness had made for a good night. We’d gotten a little taste of Kyoto nightlife. And this little private concert was the icing on the cake.
The only thing we were missing was the company of a geisha.
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