Finished
the Second World war, it changed by force the life in Japan. A decree of 1946
was prohibiting the functioning
of the okiyas, houses that were devoted to buy
girls and educate them as geishas. They still resort to them who resist an
occidentalización at any cost, and they themselves are considered to be guards
of a secular tradition. The origin of these women - courtesans'' species, but
his education and refinement was locating them much at the top of the
prostitutes- is linked to the flowering of the merchant class. What role were
the geishas playing? They were very educated and also expert in politics and
public relations, since many business was depending on his diplomacy and
aptitude to solve difficult situations. Nevertheless they were not happening of
being luxurious slaves bought and sold as a valuable furniture, and were
despised publicly. The useful life of the Geishas was short, since rapidly they
were remaining bald for the ointment with which they were combing, and the lead
that was serving as base for his white makeup was marking them forever. His
destination in general was the asylum or the suicide: they were never going so
far as to become independent of the okiya, and it had not also served them too
much to achieve it, since the spotted skin was stigmatizing them forever. They
had to dedicate several hours to
dressing oneself. The makeup had to cover face
and neck (also they were painting to themselves the nape, which was considered
to be the most seductive part). After the white pasta was placed, they were
spending a piece of wood burned to blacken the eyebrows and were delineating
the eyes with red painting to highlight the dark eyes. Of red also they were
painting the cheeks (with dust of flowers) and the lips. They were smearing the
hair with a greasy ointment that was giving him sheen and it was supported by
brace and good brushed for one week. Then they were putting themselves on a
series of kimonos like petticoats and on them of geisha. In addition to
studying the whole day from five o''clock of the morning, the method to
stimulate learning of the girls was consisting of having a distinguishing
dealing between geishas and oshakus: these had to bathe with cold water and
they were not fed so well as others, which did not have to demonstrate famine
before a client. One morning, when it was eighteen years, Umechiyo was of
surprise in surprise: it bathed with warm water and they served him an abundant
and delightful meal. At the time of dressing itself, the administratrix gave
him a splendid kimono and the hakoya put a strip embroidered with golden
threads. It was his debut, although it was not a real geisha yet. This night a
sixty-year-old merchant decided to buy it for approximately fifty thousand
today dollars (in addition to the expenses noted down in the notebook during
ten years of studies) . Although she kept on living in the okiya, it had a
wedding species: it received from his proprietor a ring of brilliant, there was
organized a holiday at which there were present the personages and the most
important local courtesans and it changed his name into that of Umeya when it
registered in the record of geishas. He and Umeya were invited to all the
important holidays and the political knowledge of the young woman was
attracting the interest of influential personages, which was translated in prestige
for the boss. A pair of years later the merchant she to paid for to extract it
again definitively of the okiya and made her his
concubine. But it was not a
question of love: it was no possible to have two geishas simultaneously and the
complicated conventions were demanding that the merchant should acquire other
one to demonstrate that it was more and more powerful, but it could not run the
risk of discrediting itself if the okiya was selling Umeya to someone of minor
social condition. Installed in a pretty house, with two women who were doing of
servants and vigilant, Umeya lost contact with the exterior world. As
concubine, once a year he had to surrender to the humiliation since of
presenting his respects to the wife of his boss (although he could not speak,
his voice would have offended the house), who was giving him a secondhand
kimono and was grateful for the given services. Umeya knew that later the lady
would make clean with salt the places where the concubine had been stopped. When
his proprietor died she did not find out: only it was known it when he sent a
servant to ask for his absence. This way it began his decline: it returned to
the okiya, where it served different bosses, and when she felt old woman began
to give classes, but finally it went to stop to the asylum. Only once a year,
for a holiday that was celebrated there, he was always dressing oneself again
like, was singing and dancing as it could do it: before this auditorium of
destitute persons, Umeya was feeling that it was recovering his ancient sheen.
At present they are not slaves, but they choose freely the profession. In
general they are hired by industrialists or merchants who entertain his associates
or guests with an exotic spectacle or who support the habit of separating the
familiar life of the business and the politics. Nevertheless they prove to be
bigheads of his profession and once a year, about the spring, realize in the
streets the " parade of the geishas ": there, dressed in his elegant
kimonos, they give to the people the millennial fascination of his art.