Kiharu Nakamura — ‘Happy Spring’
Column — ‘From Nina With Love’
Long before the 1997 novel — ‘Memories of a Geisha,’ and its 2005 movie adaptation become widely popular, mostly for providing Western audiences with the easily digestible narrative that confirmed already held, if largely inaccurate, stereotypes of Japan’s most intriguing tradition — there was Kiharu Nakamura.
Kiharu, who competed with probably only one other geisha of her time (Mineko Iwasaki) for the coveted title of the most famous and successful geisha of the 20th century, was also the first female in Japan to speak English, get a pilot’s license, entertained number of foreign celebrities, prepare singers for the role of Cio-Cio-San in ‘Madama Butterfly’ and wrote several books including ‘Secrets of the Geisha’ and ‘The Memoir of a Tokyo-Born Geisha.’
Contrary to the popular cliche that geishas were predominantly recruited from impoverished rural families unable to feed their daughters, Kiharu, born Kazuko Yamamoto in Hokkaido on the 14th of April 1913, came from an affluent family that moved to Tokyo while Kazuko was still a child. The family settled in the Giza district where Kazuko fall in love with the elegant, extravagantly attired ladies that seem to glide rather than walk through Giza’s streets, wearing white makeup and elaborate coiffures basking in the admiration of everyone that saw them. Japan’s ultimate symbol of perfection — the geishas, meaning: ‘arts person.’
What young Kazuko may not have known at that time, was that the mysterious-looking ladies were not always females.
To this day it remains a little-known fact that the first geishas were men known as taikomochi who were once advisors and entertainers to their feudal lords, but later become pure entertainers performing as jesters, musicians, artists and storytellers. A number of them also worked as oiran — Japanese courtesans.
It was not until 1751 that the first onna geisha or female geisha appeared at a party to the great surprise of everyone. She was called geiko, meaning ‘arts girl,’ the term still used for geishas in Kyoto. It wasn’t long until onna geishas outnumbered their male counterparts, providing sophisticated hospitality and refined entertainment for important government officials and successful businessmen. While taikomochi continued to assist geishas, the geishas’ popularity continued to grow and by the 1920s their number reached almost 80,000 throughout Japan.
Despite geishas’ popularity, Kazuko’s parents were not in favour of their daughter wish to become one. Nonetheless, at the tender age of 16, which was ten years later than the geishas before the 20th century commenced their trainings, Kazuko joined an okiya or geishas house in Shinbashi and her training as a maiko, a ‘dancing child,’ or an apprentice geisha began. As Shinbashi okiya was a very highly regarded, Kazuko, who changed her name to Kiharu, meaning ‘happy spring,’ was taught by only the very best teachers and excelled in a number of disciplines including playing traditional musical instruments shamisen and the tsuzumi. Her teachers and later clients were particularly impressed by the elegance of her walk and the unusual vibrations of her voice. But none of those talents distinguished her sufficiently enough from her peers, a goal Kiharu coveted the most.
Intelligent and aware of the changes that were taking place in and around Japan, Kiharu decided to study English. It was the decision that would pave the way for her later life. The ability to speak English meant that Western dignitaries were often brought to see her as she was the only geisha able to converse with them. Amongst the more famous were Babe Ruth, Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard. Jean Cocteau was so taken by Kiharu’s charms that he spent a week in her company and dedicated his poem Geisha to her. Composer Leopold Stokowski and publisher William Randolph Hearst were also among her admirers.
But Kiharu’s ability to entertain foreigners did not go unnoticed by Japan’s officials and she was soon tasked with gathering intelligence about her visitors. The war winds were blowing over Japan in full swing. However, having no desire for espionage, Kiharu, now 27 years old, married a Japanese diplomat, Shintaro Ota in 1940 and the pair moved to Kolkata, India. While in India, Kiharu helped delivered secret papers to anti-British hero Chandra Bose at his hideaway in the Himalayas. Not long after she gave birth to their son, Kiharu divorced Shintaro and returned to Japan where she lived quietly in the countryside until Japan’s surrender when she returned to Tokyo and married her second husband, a famous photographer Masaya Nakamura.
By 1956 Kiharu become disillusioned not only with her second marriage but also with life in Japan which resembled less and less the way of life she knew and loved. Tokyo started to look and feel foreign and the profession she dedicated her life to was being tarnished in front of her eyes. Many young women started selling their bodies to American soldiers claiming to be traditional ‘geishas.’ The image of geisha as a common prostitute was not only embraced but widely popularised by American soldiers and other Westerners. Nothing could have been more insulting to women whose long and rigorous training turned them into walking pieces of art in the country where, for centuries, visitors sought solace in the world in which grace is the path to beauty and peace, a ceremony is its own end, and finding comfort in the company of geishas was considered a great privilege.
Kiharu divorced Masaya and moved to New York determined to do what she could to dispel the misconception. She walked the streets of the great city attired in an expensive kimono, taught students how to play the shamisen and dance, and gave lectures about geishas’ traditions and Japanese traditional arts. She showed Anna Moffo and others appearing in Madama Butterfly how to stand gracefully from a kneeling position and how to walk as geishas do. She was engaged as a consultant for movies and theatre productions such as ‘Pacific Overtures.’
On the 5th of January 2004, at the age of 90, Kiharu died peacefully in her sleep. Filmmaker Artemis Willis who was directing a documentary about her life, announced her death to the media. Willis’ documentary ‘Smoke and Mirrors: A Geisha Story’ was released in late 2004 and it included an interview with Kiharu’s son who described his mother as a ‘somewhat complicated woman.’ ‘I love my mother,’ he said, ‘but I hated her personality.’ I dare say many sons and daughters of parents far less accomplished than Kiharu have said the same.
Kiharu Nakamura was above all a woman dedicated to her profession, including using every opportunity she could to dispel myths about it. In one of her many speeches, she explained: ‘There is a great misunderstanding that it is easy to be a geisha, but it is very difficult. Each geisha has a speciality. The profession could face out, but I hope it does not as I am so proud of being a geisha.’
And you should have been Kaiharu and I am pleased to tell you that, although greatly reduced in numbers, geishas are still guardians of the fine tradition. The most recent addition — a young lady named Emiko who resigned from her dreary, nine-to-five office job, told me that she did so because she was yearning for the beauty and tranquillity of the old Japan. Besides, she said, in many cases geishas still have more independence, including financial independence, than many married women. Not to mention the job security.
Emiko would like you to know that;
While almost everything has changed and modern Japan resembles the West in many ways, deep in the heart of Japan’s old capital of Kyoto — maikos are still trained for a minimum of five years, and kimonos still require skilful hand painting on up to 40 feet of the finest silk. Only white, black and red makeup is used and while coiffures are sometimes wigs, they are equally ornate. Geikos and maikos are still dancers, singers, storytellers, entertainers, confidants and secret keepers in ochayas or teahouses where only those invited are allowed, and as you well know Kiharu-san, only the men of the highest standings and means are ever invited. In that respect, it remindes me a little bit of Nina’s Gentlemen’s Club — if it was open to everybody, it would soon have no value at all. It is the mystery that surrounds exclusivity that makes it special.
While true that foreigners flock in greater numbers each year and often display frightful ignorance of our culture and traditions, have no fear — the real world of geikos and maikos remains well hidden even from the ordinary Japanese let alone foreigners. Even the most powerful politicians and celebrities have to wait to be invited and can never attend by themselves. It is not for nothing that we have built our 300 years old world on flattery and secrecy!
Those few powerful foreigners invited to enter ochayas still struggle with the whole notion of the illusion we have been rigorously trained to create as an escape from the struggles of ordinary life — the concept familiar to Japanese men ever since we started painting our faces white so that they glow in the dark rooms lit only by candles. Equally, the fine subtleties of flirting performed as a delicate art form — by the tiniest lowering of eyes, movement of a hand, or a flicker of a fan, are all but lost on those foreign men. They do not seem to understand that when we are entertaining them, including flirting, we are acting our role, and the very fact that they perceive it as sincere is a testimony of how good we are at what we do. The person behind the expensive kimono and white make-up has not the slightest desire to see them again, only the artfully arranged doll in front of them does and greatly so.
They also struggle with the idea of a female body wrapped from shoulder to toe in layers of exquisite silk only to be admired. Much like a piece of art, only moving in our case. They struggle even more to understand that when their session is over, we move to another ochayas and then another, rarely returning home before dawn, only to rise early for training lessons. We are extensively trained and industrious performers. Working as hard, if not harder, than any of the Western musicians, actresses or dancers they worship as celebrities and would not dream of mixing with them in ordinary life but struggle to apply the same criterion to us. Peculiar, isn’t it?
But it isn’t foreign men that worried me, on the contrary, it is Japanese. Because they are fewer and fewer men who understand and value tradition and the importance of preserving it. As you know — one cannot appreciate what one does not understand. For centuries our patrons, even those rare and precious dannas, appreciated us because they understood and valued the arts and traditions. If our world vanishes, all our artisans will vanish too — from kimonos craftsmen to shamisen repairers. I am pleased to say that the old Ichiro Saga still paints kimonos for ten hours every day even after 56 years of doing it. But I am not sure how long he will last since he is over 70 now.
So, yes, if all that vanishes, there will be nothing to distinguish us from the rest of the world clad in the same kind of clothing, listening to the same kind of music and owning the same kind of gadgets. Nothing at all. Let us hope that day never comes!
