ASAKUSA Underground > Live like Kafu
[Caution]
If you wonder why the Brazilian side back has anything to do with the Japanese literature, you will find this article a little difficult. But please don't get discouraged. This is about whether geisha girls are entirely extinct or they still exist in different ways in modern Japan.
[Recommended sites]
・SHUNKIN.NET
Litterature Japonaise
・Le Saijiki
Ce site a pour but de familiariser les francophones avec le haiku
・Publikationsprojekt Japanische Literatur
Ursprung des Buchs:
Im Winter, das Auf- und Zuklappen
der Handflachen
Shomotsu no kigen / fuyu no tenohira / toji hiraki
書物の起源冬のてのひら閉じひらき
Haiku von Terayama Shuji (1935-1983)
Sammlung ?Kafun kokai’ 1975 (U: E. K.)
Above all, Kafu Nagai was a millionaire. It is not because he wrote some best-sellers. Simply he was born in a very wealthy family, which goes back to the age of samurais. He enjoyed living in America and France with ladies of pleasure. He continued doing the same thing in Tokyo, sometimes with disappointment, sometimes with unexpected excitement.
Apparently, the neighbourhood on the east side of the Sumida River gave him a few good surprises. Though Bokutokidan is not an autobiography, we can imagine that he may have done the same adventure as the writer in the novel, his could-be alter ego.
On a rainy day, he met a youngish woman who reminded him of old days. She was a geisha without licence.
The word geisha has mystified the men outside Japan for a long time. There have been several discussions concerning whether a geisha sleeps with her client. In principle, no, she doesn't have to. "Gei" means "art" and "sha" "person". So, it means "artist". She plays some musical instruments and entertains guests at dinner. If she strikes a guest's fancy, everything is negotiable. In practice, it is usually the case.
The woman in Bokutokidan did not play any instruments nor go to dinner parties to entertain guests. She just sat by the window. She should be called Shofu rather than geisha. If you were an official Shofu, you needed to register yourself at Health ministry and have a periodical medical check by the authority. You have to practise your business within a designated area as well.
Some workers could not afford to buy an official Shofu all the time. They go to another neighbourhood nearby where they pay less for a girl without licence. She is called Shisho, private Shofu. The woman in the story was one of Shisho. It was illegal. But the seedy and degrading side of those girls fascinated Kafu the writer. So did its illegality.
In the novel, the writer visited the woman a few times. He even thought of living with her. But, the moment he sensed that the woman knows his sentiment, he stopped seeing her. Once, only once, he went back to the house and saw her in the distance.
It is a love romance in a twisted way. Since most marriages were arranged in Japan before, you were not supposed to have carnal love at home. Love making was only to create siblings, not for joy. Therefore, samurais and wealthy merchants looked for true love outside home, notably in Yoshihara: the secluded geisha district, which is not far from Asakusa. The Japanese kept fantasizing ladies of pleasure well into the modern era. They were angels in disguise, they thought.
Would you care to have a little romance with a Shisho now?
If you really copy the way Kafu wrote, you have to sell your house first. It was only possible because we had wide class difference in Japan at that time.
Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata once wrote in his famous novel "Izu no Odori-ko / A Dance girl in Izu" a scene, in which a student tipped the elder brother of the dance girl. Can you imagine a backpacker tipping a bouncer? The student's reasoning was simple. If you were a student, you belonged to an upper class, so you should tip the less fortunate. The student didn't have much money, but once he graduated, he would earn one hundred times as much as the man. Those days are definitely over in Japan.
Besides, we don't see many geishas in kimono walking on the streets nowadays. Thanks to fiscal transparency, we have fewer corrupt officials and businessmen who used to spend fortunes in red light districts. Geishas are really an endangered species.
Are Japanese men deprived of love at the unusual place?
With or without licence, the activity is illegal now. Official Shofu do not exist. Then, what happened to the private ones, Shisho? Don't worry. They still exist. No matter how hard the authority and the righteous women try to eradicate the business of goddesses in disguise, our deeply rooted desire for joy always finds a niche. Shisho have survived under another name. Now they are called Health Jo (health girl). They have become massage artists for men's well being. Instead of you going to her seedy house as Kafu did, these days the artist lady comes to your place. In case of inconvenience at home, you can of course use a love hotel, which is much more comfortable. They call this service Delivery Health. In modern Japan of a Nintendo and a Sony, health has become something portable. If Kafu-sensei saw it, he would surely find it amusing and secretly praise human nature's resistance against inhumane morals.
Live like Kafu
[Caution]
If you wonder why the Brazilian side back has anything to do with the Japanese literature, you will find this article a little difficult. But please don't get discouraged. This is about whether geisha girls are entirely extinct or they still exist in different ways in modern Japan.
[Recommended sites]
・SHUNKIN.NET
Litterature Japonaise
・Le Saijiki
Ce site a pour but de familiariser les francophones avec le haiku
・Publikationsprojekt Japanische Literatur
Ursprung des Buchs:
Im Winter, das Auf- und Zuklappen
der Handflachen
Shomotsu no kigen / fuyu no tenohira / toji hiraki
書物の起源冬のてのひら閉じひらき
Haiku von Terayama Shuji (1935-1983)
Sammlung ?Kafun kokai’ 1975 (U: E. K.)
Above all, Kafu Nagai was a millionaire. It is not because he wrote some best-sellers. Simply he was born in a very wealthy family, which goes back to the age of samurais. He enjoyed living in America and France with ladies of pleasure. He continued doing the same thing in Tokyo, sometimes with disappointment, sometimes with unexpected excitement.
Apparently, the neighbourhood on the east side of the Sumida River gave him a few good surprises. Though Bokutokidan is not an autobiography, we can imagine that he may have done the same adventure as the writer in the novel, his could-be alter ego.
On a rainy day, he met a youngish woman who reminded him of old days. She was a geisha without licence.
The word geisha has mystified the men outside Japan for a long time. There have been several discussions concerning whether a geisha sleeps with her client. In principle, no, she doesn't have to. "Gei" means "art" and "sha" "person". So, it means "artist". She plays some musical instruments and entertains guests at dinner. If she strikes a guest's fancy, everything is negotiable. In practice, it is usually the case.
The woman in Bokutokidan did not play any instruments nor go to dinner parties to entertain guests. She just sat by the window. She should be called Shofu rather than geisha. If you were an official Shofu, you needed to register yourself at Health ministry and have a periodical medical check by the authority. You have to practise your business within a designated area as well.
Some workers could not afford to buy an official Shofu all the time. They go to another neighbourhood nearby where they pay less for a girl without licence. She is called Shisho, private Shofu. The woman in the story was one of Shisho. It was illegal. But the seedy and degrading side of those girls fascinated Kafu the writer. So did its illegality.
In the novel, the writer visited the woman a few times. He even thought of living with her. But, the moment he sensed that the woman knows his sentiment, he stopped seeing her. Once, only once, he went back to the house and saw her in the distance.
It is a love romance in a twisted way. Since most marriages were arranged in Japan before, you were not supposed to have carnal love at home. Love making was only to create siblings, not for joy. Therefore, samurais and wealthy merchants looked for true love outside home, notably in Yoshihara: the secluded geisha district, which is not far from Asakusa. The Japanese kept fantasizing ladies of pleasure well into the modern era. They were angels in disguise, they thought.
Would you care to have a little romance with a Shisho now?
If you really copy the way Kafu wrote, you have to sell your house first. It was only possible because we had wide class difference in Japan at that time.
Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata once wrote in his famous novel "Izu no Odori-ko / A Dance girl in Izu" a scene, in which a student tipped the elder brother of the dance girl. Can you imagine a backpacker tipping a bouncer? The student's reasoning was simple. If you were a student, you belonged to an upper class, so you should tip the less fortunate. The student didn't have much money, but once he graduated, he would earn one hundred times as much as the man. Those days are definitely over in Japan.
Besides, we don't see many geishas in kimono walking on the streets nowadays. Thanks to fiscal transparency, we have fewer corrupt officials and businessmen who used to spend fortunes in red light districts. Geishas are really an endangered species.
Are Japanese men deprived of love at the unusual place?
With or without licence, the activity is illegal now. Official Shofu do not exist. Then, what happened to the private ones, Shisho? Don't worry. They still exist. No matter how hard the authority and the righteous women try to eradicate the business of goddesses in disguise, our deeply rooted desire for joy always finds a niche. Shisho have survived under another name. Now they are called Health Jo (health girl). They have become massage artists for men's well being. Instead of you going to her seedy house as Kafu did, these days the artist lady comes to your place. In case of inconvenience at home, you can of course use a love hotel, which is much more comfortable. They call this service Delivery Health. In modern Japan of a Nintendo and a Sony, health has become something portable. If Kafu-sensei saw it, he would surely find it amusing and secretly praise human nature's resistance against inhumane morals.