Memoirs of A Geisha - Controversy

Controversy

After the Japanese edition of the novel was published, Arthur Golden was sued for breach of contract and defamation of character by Mineko Iwasaki, a retired geisha he had interviewed for background information while writing the novel. The plaintiff asserted that Golden had agreed to protect her anonymity if she told him about her life as a geisha, due to the traditional code of silence about their clients. However, Golden listed Iwasaki as a source in his acknowledgments for the novel, causing her to face a serious backlash, to the point of death threats. In his behalf, Arthur Golden countered that he had tapes of his conversations with Iwasaki. Eventually, in 2003, Golden's publisher settled with Iwasaki out of court for an undisclosed sum of money.

Iwasaki later went on to write her own autobiography, which shows a very different picture of twentieth-century geisha life than the one shown in Golden's novel. The book was published as Geisha, a Life in the U.S. and Geisha of Gion in the U.K.

Below are excerpts from an interview with Iwasaki:

Q: What are the common misconceptions that you want to clear up?

Iwasaki: The most common misconception is that geisha are somehow high-class courtesans, or prostitutes. And that is very much not the case. And also, geisha are not submissive and subservient, but in fact they are some of the most financially and emotionally successful and strongest women in Japan, and traditionally have been so.

Q: Why do you think these misconceptions got started?

Iwasaki: The first reason that this happened, I believe, is that historically there were licensed pleasure quarters in Japan, and the women who worked there as courtesans and high-class prostitutes were in fact indentured; they were not even allowed to leave the area. And we, the artisans, the female entertainers, we were actually free to come in and leave the district. And our purposes were very different. We were there to entertain, and we never sold ourselves, our bodies, for money. That was not the purpose of what we did; that was what the other women did. And it was very clear in the licensing arrangements and the indenture arrangements the two roles were very separate. And then in 1873, the pleasure quarters were actually outlawed, and it became illegal. And from that time, there has been a growing confusion about the nature of the two roles. I think that that is the basis of the confusion.

The second answer is because the world of the geisha, the "flower and willow world," is a very separate society that is shrouded in mystery. The myths that have been created by outsiders about the environment and the lifestyle of the geisha world have pretty much been able to grow unchecked, in a way. And because it was very separate, and a very elitist world, and one that was supposed to be kept private, people were not particularly comfortable speaking about it.

Q: Talk to me about the mizuage ceremony. What is it, and why is there so much confusion about it?

Iwakaki: This again goes back to the separation between the pleasure quarter and the entertainment quarter. Mizuage is really a coming-of-age ceremony, and apparently there was some selling of the virginity that went on in association with that ritual ceremony in the pleasure district a long time ago. However, that has never been true for the geisha. For the geisha, it was simply when they were becoming a young woman, similar to a sweet 16 in the West, and it was symbolized by the change in hairstyle, into a more womanly, grown-up hairstyle. And also certain subtle changes in the ensembles. There are a lot of rites of passage, but for some reason this one has been really latched on by people, and maybe it’s because of this misunderstanding.

Also, it is true that as with many of the rituals and rites of passage, once one has become a maiko, or a geiko, it’s very expensive, because every time you go through an entire change of kimono, for example, or of hairstyle and you need different hair ornaments, these are expensive things. For me, I was the successor to the house, the atotori, so there was no question that the money was there to provide this. But if someone is coming from the outside and training, as basically someone who is there under contract, it is expensive, and sometimes they do ask their patrons to help pay for the cost involved in making the transition.

Q: But their virginity isn’t offered in exchange for that help?

Iwasaki: That is never on the table. There is one other potential source of confusion, and that is with the word "mizuage" itself. In the Gion, the geisha district, and in many areas of the entertainment industry, "mizuage" is also a term that directly means "gross earnings," because it’s an old fishing term; as you may know, Japan was dependent on fishing for one of its main economic bases for many years. "Mizuage" means "to take out of the water." It stood for the catch. "What was your catch?" — "How much money did you make from the water?" So when I refer to mizuage, I’m actually referring to my earnings, rather than the ceremony itself.

Page text. Geishas are not prostitutes Mizuage was not a deflowering ceremony