The Land od the Rising Yen

capitals, from Winchester to Toledo, from Berlin to Kyoto — rather similar to the hurt feelings of
grandeur you find in dispossessed aristocrats. They (both the ex-capitals and
the dispossessed aristocrats) are deeply offended because times have changed.
They are right in maintaining that the old days — their own days of greatness.
— were less noisy and vulgar than modern times; yet one knows that the real
virtue of these old times is that they were grand and important then
while today they are nobodies — or, at best, only second-rate. They are sulky
and self-conscious but also gentle, more quiet, more distinguished, more
respectable than their parvenu rivals. All that is left to them is a
feeling of superiority and a great deal of nostalgia for bygone days. Kyoto — even today more of an ex-capital than a busy tourist-centre — looks down upon the
world. Only nearby Nara can get the better of it. Nara can look down upon Kyoto: it ceased to be Japan’s capital in 794.
    In Kyoto, particularly in the Gion
district, you go back in time. Fifty years? Or a hundred? Kyoto, being full of
art treasures, is the only great city of Japan which escaped bombing in the
last war and thus preserved its ancient charm but also its ancient squalor. It
is because of this that Kyoto is not only incomparably more beautiful than most
Japanese cities, but also uglier.
    But it is pleasant to wander back in
time. You see rows of small houses, tiny inns, old-fashioned restaurants piled
one upon another. Romantic old passages invite you; dark and graceful arcades
beckon to you; tiny paper houses with infinitesimal rooms open up their secrets
to you and you see that eight or ten people live in one room with the cleanliness
and tidiness common to all Japanese. You pass dustbins, scores of dustbins, put
out for collection, all bright red and blue and purple, polished and shining
more brightly than Swiss door-handles. You move around in the narrow, dark
passages. You, incorrigible occidental, expect a few juvenile delinquents with
coshes to leap out from the shadows demanding money — but all you meet is the
shy but inquisitive look on friendly, good-natured faces. There are miniature
shrines everywhere in this city of a thousand temples. You look into the houses
through the curtain-doors only half drawn and see a very old woman crouching
there, gazing into the infinite distance with an empty look, or a young woman
busily preparing pickles for her husband who, close beside her, deep in
thought, is eating rice from a bowl. The Gion itself, Kyoto’s Ginza, is gay,
florid, bustling and noisy. This apparent den of iniquity closes down at 9.30.
You long for the reckless gaiety of Tokyo’s Ginza where they keep open till as
late as 10.30. Though to be precise: here, in Kyoto, it is only the cafés,
restaurants, bars and semi-night-dubs which close at 9.30; the shops keep open
till 10.30. You cannot get a drink, not even a lemonade after ten; but you can
buy a pressure cooker or a pair of shoes.
    After a few minutes in Kyoto’s Gion district you notice exquisitely dressed and elaborately made up young ladies
walking along the streets and jumping into waiting taxis or private cars. They
wear ceremonial kimonos made of brocade and silk, their artistically
arranged, towering hairstyles add a foot to their height and their faces are
painted white like porcelain. They are the maiko girls, the student
geishas, almost the only students in Japan who are not on strike. (They soon
will be). When you catch sight of them in the streets for a fleeting moment,
what they are doing is rushing from one party to another.
    ‘They are all virgins,’ your friends
and guides will inevitably assure you. You smile cynically and say to yourself:
‘Of course. Because as soon as they cease to be virgins, no doubt, they inform
everyone of the fact!’ But you are wrong and your guide is right: the girls are virgins. Firstly, they have no opportunity, living under strict supervision as
they do, to lose their virginity; and secondly, they do not even want to. They
are all between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two. At the age of twenty-two
they will become fully-fledged geishas and go to live with their patrons who
will insist upon their virgin state: virginity is a precious and saleable
commodity; it is true, of course, that it can be bought and remade to measure,
but it is simpler and cheaper to keep the original article.
    The maiko girls will go out
and entertain