It was one of the most unusual assignments I’ve ever reported on, I spent a day being dressed as a geisha in Kyoto’s Gion district.
I think I’m turning Japanese – The Times, Jan 9, 2006.
Ahead of the cinematic launch of Memoirs of a Geisha, Carolyn Boyd and a friend bemuse a group of locals when they have a geisha makeover in Kyoto’s Gion district
As dusk falls in the Gion district of Kyoto, one of Japan’s most mysterious creatures hurriedly makes her way to her evening’s engagement. The geisha’s beautiful kimono hangs neatly from her shoulders; the wide obi belt splays out from the folds in her lower back. The whiteness of her face is interrupted only by her bowed red lips and delicate eyeliner.
It will have taken hours to achieve her unique look and, as Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha hits the big screen, cinema-goers will get an insight into the strange world of these Japanese entertainers. Few Westerners will know how it feels to be hauled into that strange attire, but for those who want a real Japanese experience, the staff at a Maiko House in Kyoto are happy to oblige.
Here, women can be pushed, pulled and painted by a team of make-up artists and kimono experts to become maiko or, in other words, trainee geisha. In a move that seems ironic in light of the furore surrounding the casting of Chinese actresses in the film, my friend and I head to the Gion district to be transformed into two very strange-looking Western geisha.
Only the photographs of young women dressed as geisha in the window of the small wood-fronted house gives it away as being different to its neighbours. We leave our shoes at the bamboo screen door, as is traditional here, and go inside. We’re greeted by a young woman behind a reception bench who briefs us in a torrent of indecipherable Japanese, that we assume is our instructions for the day’s events.
After handing over our Y12,000 fee (approximately £60), we are ushered down a corridor and shown into a small changing room. She motions that we must put on the pink cotton slip, a pair of bizarre two-toed white socks and a very fetching hairnet and then to follow her upstairs.
We emerge, giggling like the Japanese schoolgirls who tend to come to these Maiko houses for a birthday treat. Upstairs, we peer through the door of the kimono room and get a preview of what is to come. A small, middle-aged man, assisted by two young women, is wrapping a petite young girl in swathes of red silk.
The room’s walls are filled with rails of beautiful kimono, arranged according to the price of the different day packages. “Come” says one of the women as she beckons to us to enter and begins showing us the kimono. With so many on show, the choice is difficult.
“You wan’ choose?” says the other girl, clearly enthused by the chance to speak English, but it seems colours are her limit. “Brue? Yerrow?”, she says, pulling the tail ends of the kimono out of the rack. I finally plump for a light green one with pink flowers, while my friend opts for one in bright turquoise.
Expecting to be hauled into the kimono there and then, we’re confused when the girl pushes us across the hall into another room where half a dozen girls are kneeling in front of a row of industrious make-up artists. In front of us is a queue of another four girls chattering and giggling. One by one they take their place on the floor and before long it’s my turn. I kneel down and look up at the young woman about to transform me from curious traveller to alien geisha.
She gestures that I should close my eyes and, as she paints a streak of cold white emulsion across my forehead with a soft flat brush, the hairs on my neck stand on end. When she has finished on my face, she taps my shoulder and signals I should turn around. It tickles as she paints the back of my neck in the curious shape – two tapered points of flesh just below my hairline – that is considered sexy by Japanese men.
I turn around and see she’s busy preparing a finely tipped brush for the eyeliner. Closing my eyes again, I feel it tickle my eyelid as she paints on the navy blue line. She continues to pile on layers of different gloop before finishing with a spot of fuchsia pink on each eye. The cramp in my feet from kneeling is becoming unbearable but I daren’t move, just in case her hand slips and I end up with a pink streak across my cheek.
Finally, she finishes with the all-important cupid-bow lips and I can finally stretch my legs out to stand up. I hobble back to the kimono room and within seconds my arms are being guided into the long sleeves of my kimono and the old man is turning me left and right to tie it. Next he holds a small board to my back and starts wrapping me in the complicated lengths of red silk that make up the obi belt.
Tighter and tighter he pulls it, until I can only take very shallow breaths. I’m also desperately trying to keep a straight face so my make-up won’t crease but I can’t help laughing as I wonder how even the most skilled geisha would perform a tea ceremony or play a musical instrument with this get up on.
As the kimono man makes the final tucks and adjustments to my obi belt, the two women present the pièce de la résistance – the wig. Despite my full geisha make-up, and rib-crunching kimono, I am, strictly speaking, still bald. The two women place a very stiff looking hairpiece adorned with a string of orchids on my head. The wire inside it scrapes down on my scalp.
Even if the kimono weren’t keeping my back straight, I would have to stand dead straight to keep the wig on my head. Looking at my feet, therefore, in order to put on my platformed wooden sandals, is a tricky task. But our look is completed and the true comedy of our geisha experience is revealed in a full-length mirror.
Making our way to the photo studio, we’re ready to capture it all on film. It’s no surprise that this intriguing tradition is exclusive to Japan and something tells me that Arthur Golden didn’t have two British girls in mind when he described his trainee geisha.
For a list of Kyoto’s maiko houses, contact the Japanese National Tourist Organisation on 020 7734 9638 or see www.seejapan.co.uk