World’s oldest geisha looks to future to preserve past

These days the streets of geisha districts are quiet in Japan’s neon-light cities where nightlife is more about dance clubs, hostess bars and karaoke joints than traditional Japanese entertainment, leaving many geishas nostalgic and unemployed.

“Customers long ago had so much to talk about,” said Kokin, who only uses her stage name as is customary among geishas. “The customers now, young people, they don’t have anything to talk about with us. They go straight to karaoke.” Kokin still plays the three-stringed shamisen and sings classical songs at parties.

She still has memories of her heyday as a geisha, when men hired her by the time it took for an incense stick to burn out. “I would be cooling myself on a bench in the summer with nothing to do, and someone would ask me if I was free and offer to pay for one incense stick,” recalled Kokin. “People would ask for me, even if it was just for an hour”.

These days, there are only a few geishas left in a fading profession in which female entertainers sing, dance and engage in witty conversation at dinner parties for exorbitant prices. Geisha numbers across Japan peaked at 80,000 in 1928 when Kokin began her career, but now only 1,000 are left and in Tokyo, just 300.

Contrary to perceptions that geishas are prostitutes, they are entertainers. While some in the past had patrons, and perhaps married them, most now live independently on modest incomes.

With their clientele of elite businessmen and powerful politicians shrinking, geishas are grappling with the need to branch out of their exclusive, so-called “flower and willow world” and look for new clients such as tourists.

Alarmed that geishas are headed for extinction, community groups in Tokyo and tour companies have started making the entertainment more accessible in a trend already seen in Kyoto, Japan’s ancient capital and the centre of the geisha world. In Kagurazaka, central Tokyo, a non-profit organisation began offering performances by geishas two years ago, unthinkable in a neighbourhood where geishas were rarely seen on the streets and were shrouded behind the gates of the ryotei.

“The geisha’s tradition will survive within the ryotei for people who are willing to pay high prices,” said Keiko Hioki, vice president of the group, Ikimachi Club. “But to preserve the geisha’s world as part of our culture, it must be better known to the general public.”

Ryotei are also under pressure to change. The restaurants, complete with rock gardens, rare art works and exquisite tableware, have traditionally pampered only “onajimi-san”, or regular customers. Like the geishas, they too have found that business has become slow and unprofitable.