Potent Spell of Misunderstanding
04/01/2006 @ 6:00 am
“The geisha world has a potent spell that is cast on us today,” Dr. Linda Chance, a professor of Japanese studies in Philadelphia, said at a recent conference. “I am going to argue it is a potent spell of misunderstanding.”
Chance was speaking as part of the Cherry Blossom Festival there, where the Center for East Asian Studies and the Japan-American Society of Greater Philadelphia co-sponsored a discussion about traditional Japanese entertainers.
Geishas are widely misunderstood even by Japanese youth, who get their information from movies and “don’t know much more about it than [Americans] do,” Chance added.
Poor Mari….she’s my favorite. If I ever become a j-pop singer and part of the...
Shes definitely at the top of my hot list.
perfeckt 10:10
I have been living in Japan for the past 4 years, and I would have to say that I still have no idea what a “real” geisha is like. Often when talking around Kyoto you can see Maiko-san, or ladies who have gotten “done up” like geisha, but my Japanese friends always tell me they are not the real thing.
April 1st, 2006 at 10:27 amwhat’s to understand, they’re female, play guitar and wear a funny costume.
April 1st, 2006 at 10:43 amGeisha are completely anachronistic to modern Japanese youth. Modern English (myself included) people don’t know more about middle aged knights than do American nerds or even Japanese nerds (I know of both cases from personal experience). Why is that suprising to anyone?
April 1st, 2006 at 8:10 pmI once got my hair cut in the U.S. right before coming to Japan. The guy was about 1000 years old and when he hear where I was headed, he warned me, “Watch out for those geishas.”
Got bless that silly guy.
Did you happen to see the Japanese version of Newsweek about how the world sees Japan through its many “goyaku” (mistaken translations)? It’s a shame…
April 1st, 2006 at 11:35 pmidea:i think for the most part that something as difficult as being a GEISHA we often misunderstand the lives of these young girls i have been weeks on end tring to find the truth about these young women some of the things i found does not surprise me really it was seen as a honor to be a GEISHA but to those who were often contracted to that life it seemed only excapable by marriage.the young girl did not have a choice it was a written agreement made by the care givers of that child so why are we so facinated by this, girls are sold and bought all the time some to serve as wives,concubines, slaves.etc so lets concider is it an honor or a horror
April 7th, 2006 at 1:18 pm