"Someone's boring me. I think it's me." - Dylan Thomas

***

Japan trip
Day 6 - 11th June - Kyoto: Geisha walking lecture, Pontocho (Part 4)

On Jap trains you're supposed to set your phone to silent and not use it, but most people text or surf. Maybe this policy is to let people sleep on the train (many of them do that).


I then went back to Kyoto for a walking lecture on Geisha by a Scottsman who'd been in Japan for 15 years and doing the tours for 5. He's married to a Tayuu (pseudo-geisha).

Under-20s are not supposed to buy cigarettes or alcohol in Japan. So the vending machines require you to use an ID card to verify your age. Yet, there is no law saying you cannot give people your ID card (some guy got his mother's) and they don't check at convenience stores.

Now there're about 300 geisha left in Japan (Kyoto?). The oldest registered one is 97, a 94 year old performed in 2007 and the youngest is 15.

There's a 82 year old geisha who has great skin because she doesn't drink beer - only sake.

In the past, you could start training at 8, but now you must be 15 and have your mother's permission. You must be =<165cm and >39kg because the kimono can weigh up to 15 kg. The contract is 5-6 years and you don't get any salary. Only 20% of the girls are from Kyoto.

Apprentice geisha (maiko) do up their real hair and need to sleep on a special pillow. They get 2 days off a month (officially, the second and fourth sundays). When they become fully fledged geisha at 20+, they use wigs.


Geisha shoes, purse and the pillow for maiko to sleep on. They also don't carry handphones

The tour started in Miyagawacho, whose symbol was 3 linked rings.


Small street


Shokei (house guardian)

Geisha are not allowed to get married (until they retire) - but they can have kids; a woman zoomed by us on a bicycle which had a kid on it, and we found out she was a geisha (though she's not working anymore). The Japs are very ingenious in rule breaking (see also cigarette age limits above).


Another street


A geisha boarding/teahouse. Each house has about 100 customers.

We passed by the local crime lord's home. Its exterior was quite modest, yet tasteful, with gravel at the entrance (IIRC). I didn't take a photo - I didn't think it would be wise to.


A maiko. Her upper lip is white, and she has something dangling from her hair which marks her out as a first-year.


This one has both lips painted, and no hair dangler.

There is no point for geishas to offer sex, because there're prostitutes already. You don't need to try to pick them up, because you know it won't work, so you can just relax and enjoy the evening.

The biggest geisha boarding house has 7 geisha and apprentices.


This one's 15 (if this is the picture my scribbling refers to)

A night for 7 with 3-4 geisha costs about $350-400 per person, with dinner and beer. The geisha houses act as booking agents which take cuts of the geishas' fees (you pay the house, not the girls).


This is to prevent people peeing on the wall

A geisha outfit costs $30-100k because of the obi (the cloth on their backs), jade, coral and precious stones.

There're 1,600 temples and 400 shrines in Kyoto.


Alley


This girl has a shorter obi and a wig - she's a geiko (geisha in local dialect)

If you enter the profession at 24, you dress as a geisha rather than a maiko, but you'll be less senior than a younger girl who made her debut first.


The oldest Zen temple in Japan: Kenninji

Now, we moved on into Gion, whose symbol was a skewered dumpling.


Gion


Gion registry buiding. Before WWII ~800 geisha and maiko were registered here. Now only 115 are.


"We serve OHMI-BEEF by Testupon-yaki. OHMI-BEEF was eaten by the Shyogun (Top of Samurai) about 200 years ago. OHM-BEEF is most historical beef. OHMI, MASTUZAKA, KOBE are same ROOT (Tazima-cow)"
This sounded suspicious. Quoth I:

"Japanese history records that the early ancestors of the present Japanese people ate beef during the Yamata period (AD. 200-644). However, during the Asuka and Nara Periods (645-781) the Taiho-Ritsuryo law was passed. This law forbade the eating of meat from four-legged animals and was a direct result of the growing influence of Buddhism. This law remained in place until the Meiji Restoration in 1868 (Yoshida and Klein, 1990).

Over the centuries, starting in the Asuka and Nara Periods, various edicts reinforced the prohibition of meat consumption. For example, farmers in the Kinki region of Japan were found to have disobeyed the prohibition and consumed beef on special occasions. Their practices were then specifically banned during the Heian Period (782-1181). Between 1685 and 1709, the Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi issued several edicts that forbade cruelty to animals. The edicts became increasingly extreme, and eventually the trapping and killing of all birds and animals were banned (Yoshida and Klein, 1990).

With the Meiji Restoration, the laws and edicts prohibiting the killing of animals and the eating of meat were rescinded. The young Emperor Meiji appeared anxious to encourage the Westernization of some aspects of Japanese society. In 1871, the Meiji government announced that “a meat diet is superior to keep nourishment and health.” The following year, Emperor Meiji suggested that his citizens eat beef, and he personally ate meat as a way to encourage the Westernization of his country."

- Marketing Beef in Japan, William A. Kerr


The biggest, most expensive teahouses: you pay $5-600 a head. In Memoirs of a Geisha, she spills sake on the Chairman here. Meanwhile, during the movie's production party, a waitress spilled sake on the Director.

An alcohol license for a bar here is only $200.


Lesson schedules. In Gion most of the teachers are male, except for dance where the instructors are usually women.


Alley


In the second picture, the one on the left is wearing rain shoes.


This is the bridge in Memoirs where the Chairman gave her the ice cream and hanky, and started his pedophilic obsession.


River


Shirakawa minami-dori in the day


Gion waka (poem)

"かにかくに
祇園は
こいし
寝るときも
枕のしたの
水のながるる"

"O so deeply
I love Gion
Even in my sleep
The stream runs
Beneath my pillow"

- Isamu Yoshii

Whenever he does the tour he recites the poem, which surprises Japanese people because they can't read it easily, but he cheats by memorising it. Hurr hurr.

We saw a heron in the river but it flew off before I could do anything. This was interesting as they had some significance (which I can't recall now).

You're not supposed to wear yukatas (summer robes) till July.



I asked the guide about racism and he said it was scattered: he'd been in Japan for so long it sounded weird when he spoke English now. I referenced the guy in Hokkaido, and he said it was a troublemaker. He said Japan was a good country to be a foreigner in. Yet, we know that racism in Japan is well-documented and attested to, so.

I also asked about Americans' favourite hangup: JAP, and he said "I don't think they really care" and that "'Japanese' is a long word". He pointed out that, just like "gaijin", the context and tone you used mattered.


Kabuki founder. Ironically they then banned women from it (due to sexual scandals, though the young boys playing women then took their place - in more ways than one)


Kamo River, running through Kyoto


Plaque about Pontocho, a famous picturesque street


Pontocho


Corridor


Pontocho


"Hotel de Tourisme. Ministere charge du Tourisme"
Tourism signs stolen from somewhere in France


Rabbits enjoying a meal


One of the few English menus in the place (what to do, most of Kyoto's tourists are domestic)


More modest-looking menu from a place with more modest prices. I decided to dine there, not least since it had local specialities.

The waitress's English seemed okay, but when I found out that U-Ron Tea was Oolong and decided not to have any, she still served me some. Oh well. On a side note, Oolong Tea is the most (only?) visible form of Asian, non-Japanese Tea in Japan.


Yuba with Japanese pepper, Appetiser (hijuki - seaweed) with some gluten thing (cover was Y300, gah)


My culinary adventure: tofu with shutoh (pickled bonito guts). The pickled bonito guts tasted like they look - disgusting; slimy with solid bits (what was I thinking?!. The tofu was silken smooth though.

The servings were modest along wiht the prices, but this was okay as I wasn't that hungry (probably due to having some Baskin Robbins Musk Melon ice cream at Himeji just before leaving - it was alright only) and would rather try more things.


Deep fried chicken with apricot flavor. The light brown paste was presumably apricot but I couldn't taste it.

Comparing the English and Japanese menus, I found the latter to be only slightly longer. The prices were the same, except that the Japanese menu had Y200 rice (presumably plain). Hah.


Ochaduke (rice, salted Japanese apricot and hot green tea). It looks better than it tastes (like the sum of its parts)

The waitress asked where I was from. I should've said "Syonan-to" (not just to her, but to everyone else who asked) but I didn't want to be kicked out and have the yakuza called on me.


Holy Wine - from Yasukuni. Tsk tsk. And another reason why I shouldn't have said I was from "Syonan-to".

In all the meal was Y2400 which wasn't that expensive (though it was probably my most expensive meal in Japan). The local specialities were interesting, but I could see why they weren't more well-known.


Pontocho at night


Kamo River at night


Calpis flavoured water. I thought this was weird - 0 kcal sweet-sour water with skim milk powder in it.


In my Kyoto youth hostel, there were some Ang Moh girls travelling alone, which reminded me of how annoyed I was whenever Singapore girls give the "you're not a girl" refrain when I tell them travelling alone is no problem (earlier post on this).

If I were a girl I'd do exactly the same things I currently do while travelling (caveat: I don't go out at night much, and I don't club).

Unless you do stupid things or engage in high risk behavior, the most that will happen if you're a girl travelling alone is that you will get groped which is annoying but not a showstopper.