The Land od the Rising Yen

German who had been living in
Tokyo for about four years and was well on the way to making a business career
for himself, talked to me on this subject.
    ‘I am speaking to you man to man,’ he
said. ‘Please don’t give me away, it would make me look ridiculous. I should
lose face and that’s fatal here. Promise?’
    I promised.
    He looked around cautiously and then
he went on.
    ‘I love my wife. She is a Japanese
girl. I have never been unfaithful to her and do not intend to be. All the
same, I have to spend at least three nights a week in brothels. Very well, call
them geisha-houses. I slip away at midnight, and so do most of my Japanese
business friends. It’s not so bad when you can slip out. But I can’t get out of
going to the parties. How would you like to go to brothels three times a week?’
    I found this question unnecessarily
personal and left it unanswered.
    ‘My wife doesn’t suspect me of being
faithful to her,’ he went on. ‘That’s my shady secret. She would think rather
poorly of me if she found out. You won’t talk? You promised...’
    I told him not to worry. I might
write about him in my book but apart from that I wouldn’t breathe a word.
    ‘The other day I thought I had
tricked three Japanese,’ he said with a wide grin. ‘I produced the contracts
from my desk out of the blue and handed them a pen. All this was in my office,
mind you. They were so taken aback and confused that they signed. After they’d
gone, I felt pretty elated. “No geishas for me tonight,” I thought anticipating
the pleasures of a geisha-less evening. But I laughed too soon. That evening,
the three Japanese gentlemen, all smiles and bows, reappeared in my office.
They did not explain why they had come. They didn’t need to. Off we went to the
bro... I mean to one of those houses of traditional geisha entertainment.’
     
    The Americans have established
another great ‘first’., forestalling all other nations. The achievement is less
famous than their landing on the moon but not much less remarkable. They have
the first American geisha in Tokyo.
    This American lady wears a beautiful kimono and her blonde hair is made up in a high coiffure, in true geisha-style. She
sings Japanese songs and accompanies herself on the guitar; when she runs out
of Japanese songs, a few saucy American songs help out. Her repartee is
rumoured to be a shade less raffiné than that of her Japanese
counterparts but it is still lightning quick. Americans living in Tokyo would not touch her with a barge-pole; they say — most unfairly — that she is just a
prostitute with a gimmick. Americans — and other white people — remain faithful
to Japanese geishas. But Japanese businessmen flock to her and used to queue up
in front of her bedroom door: the attraction of a blonde American woman proved
irresistible for many. I say ‘used to’ queue up — not because her attraction
has waned but she has been doing a roaring trade and has grown rich; nowadays
she can pick and choose her clients. All the same, her enemies maintain that
her business is controlled by her pimp whom she calls Papasan.
     
    But, as I remarked earlier,
clarification of terms is most necessary. These girls whom I have just
described do indeed call themselves geishas nowadays; other people call them
geishas too. But this is an abuse of the term. Demand for geishas and for their
services became so great that these girls — not really properly trained — made
the best of a sellers’ market. Admirers of the real geishas refer to them, most
contemptuously, as pillow-geishas, girls who can be hired for the night.
    The true geisha is a bird of very
different plumage. Not that she is not a prostitute: she is. But she is the
finest, most cultured and most treasured prostitute one can find anywhere; and
the only prostitute who is genuinely respected, and rightly so.
    When a geisha reaches the end of her
very long and thorough training in the art of conversation, repartee, singing,
dancing, playing the guitar, tea-ceremony, flower arrangement, etc. (and more
on the education of geishas in the chapter on Kyoto, which is the greatest
university-town for geishas, their Cambridge or Harvard) she will be, more
likely than not, a virgin. She will be about twenty or twenty-one years old and
ready for her first patron. Mamasan of the tea-house will know the girl
well and appreciate her real value; she will also know the market. The girl may
be chosen by a would-be patron