This Japanese Geisha Musical Snow Globe Collectible showcases an exquisite piece of Geiko Geigi Floral Asian Decor, perfect for collectors and lovers of Japanese culture. The globe features a beautiful Geisha dressed in traditional attire, set in a stunning floral backdrop.
With a touch of music, this Snow Globe plays a lovely tune that will bring an enchanting ambiance to any space. The intricate details and craftsmanship of this piece are truly remarkable, making it a unique and valuable addition to any collection of rare items.
All items are sold used and is. The music box does work. There is some sticker residue or something on the back side of the glass. Feel free to message me with any questions, and also check out the other stuff in my store! I am always willing to make a good deal on multiple items & will combine shipping!
Geisha (芸者) (/ˈɡeɪʃə/; Japanese: [ɡeːɕa]),[1][2] also known as geiko (芸子) (in Kyoto and Kanazawa) or geigi (芸妓), are a class of female Japanese performing artists and entertainers trained in traditional Japanese performing arts styles, such as dance, music and singing, as well as being proficient conversationalists and hosts. Their distinct appearance is characterised by long, trailing kimono, traditional hairstyles and oshiroi make-up. Geisha entertain at parties known as ozashiki, often for the entertainment of wealthy clientele, as well as performing on stage and at festivals.
The first female geisha appeared in 1751, with geisha before that time being male performers who entertained guests. Only later did the profession become mainly characterised by female workers.[3][a]
The arts that geisha perform are considered highly developed and, in some cases, unique throughout Japan to the world of geisha. For example, the Gion district of Kyoto is the only district wherein the kyo-mai style of Japanese traditional dance is taught. This style of dance is taught solely to the geisha within the district by the Inoue school, with the school's former head, Inoue Yachiyo, having been classified as a "Living National Treasure" by the Government of Japan, the highest artistic award attainable in the country, in 1955.
In the early stages of Japanese history, saburuko (serving girls) were mostly wandering girls whose families had been displaced by war.[12] Some of these saburuko girls offered sexual services for money while others with a better education made a living by entertaining at high-class social gatherings.[13][14]
After the imperial court moved the capital to Heian-kyō (Kyoto) in 794, aspects of now-traditional Japanese art forms and aesthetic ideals began to develop, which would later contribute to the conditions under which the geisha profession emerged.[15] Skilled female performers, such as shirabyōshi dancers, thrived under the Imperial court, creating the traditions of female dance and performance that would later lead to both the development of geisha and kabuki actors.
During the Heian period, ideals surrounding relationships with women, sexual or otherwise, did not emphasise fidelity, with marriage within the Heian court considered a relatively casual arrangement. Men were not constrained to be faithful to their wives, with the ideal wife instead being a modest mother who managed the affairs of the house, following Confucian customs wherein love had secondary importance to the other roles a wife fulfilled within the marriage. As such, courtesans—who provided not only sexual enjoyment, but also romantic attachment and artistic entertainment—were seen both as an outlet for men and as common companions. Though geisha would not appear until the 1800s, the role and status of courtesans as artistic and romantic entertainers were a tradition that geisha came to inherit, with the basic artforms of entertaining guests through song, dance and conversation being employed and adapted to contemporary tastes by geisha.[citation needed]
Walled-in pleasure quarters known as yūkaku (遊廓/遊郭) were built in the 16th century,[16] with the shogunate designating prostitution illegal to practice outside of these "pleasure quarters" in 1617.[17] Within the pleasure quarters, yūjo (遊女, "[women] of pleasure") – a term used to refer to prostitutes as a whole – were classified and licensed, the upper echelons of which were referred to as oiran, a category with its own internal ranks, the highest of which being the tayū.
Though women in the lower ranks of yūjo did not provide as much artistic entertainment as they did sexual, oiran, whilst still prostitutes, also included the traditional arts as a key aspect of their entertainment, their practice of which differed considerably from those of geisha. As oiran were considered to be low-ranking members of the nobility, the instruments they played and the songs they sang were often confined to those considered "respectable" enough for the upper classes. This typically meant that oiran sang long, traditional ballads (nagauta (lit. 'long songs')), and played instruments such as the kokyū (a type of bowed shamisen) and the koto (a 13-stringed harp).
However, some yūjo also performed theatrical plays, dances and skits; one such person was Izumo no Okuni, whose theatrical performances on the dry riverbed of the Kamo River are considered to be the beginnings of kabuki theatre
Following their inception by the shogunate in the 17th century, the pleasure quarters quickly became popular entertainment centres that developed their own additional forms of entertainment outside of sex. The highly accomplished courtesans of these districts entertained their clients by dancing, singing, and playing music. Some were renowned poets and calligraphers as well; the development of the cultural arts of the pleasure quarters led to the rise in oiran being considered to be the celebrities of their day.[citation needed]
Around the turn of the 18th century, the first geisha, or forerunners of geisha, performing for guests of the pleasure quarters began to appear; these entertainers, who provided song and dance, developed from a number of sources. Some geisha, who were something of travelling entertainers going from party to party, were men, who would entertain the customers of courtesans through song and dance.[17] At the same time, the forerunners of female geisha, the teenage odoriko ("dancing girls"),[18] developed, trained and hired as chaste dancers-for-hire within these pleasure quarters. Further still, some courtesans, whose contracts within the pleasure quarters had ended, chose to stay on to provide musical entertainment to guests, making use of the skills they had formerly developed as part of their job.[citation needed]
In the 1680s, odoriko had become popular entertainers and were often paid to perform in the private homes of upper-class samurai;[19] by the early 18th century, many of these odoriko had also begun offering sexual services as well as chaste performances. Performers who were no longer teenagers (and could no longer style themselves odoriko)[20] adopted other titles in order to continue working – with one being "geisha", after the male entertainers of the time.
The first woman known to have called herself "geisha" was a prostitute from Fukagawa, roughly around 1750,[21] who had become a skilled singer and shamisen player. The geisha, who took the name of Kikuya, became an immediate success, bringing greater popularity to the idea of female geisha.[b] In the next two decades, female geisha became well known for their talents as entertainers in their own right; these performers often worked in the same establishments as male geisha
By 1800, the profession of geisha was understood to be almost entirely female, and was established as a distinct role in its own right; however, geisha were, throughout various points within the Edo period, unable to work outside of the pleasure quarters, being affected by reforms aimed at either limiting or shutting down the pleasure quarters. These reforms were often inconsistent, and were repealed at various times.[citation needed]
Once established as an independent profession, a number of edicts were then introduced in order to protect the business of courtesans and separate the two professions. Geisha were firstly forbidden from selling sex, though many continued to do so; if a courtesan accused a geisha of stealing her customers and business of sex and entertainment, an official investigation was opened, with the potential for a geisha to lose her right to practice the profession. Geisha were also forbidden from wearing particularly flashy hairpins or kimono, both of which were hallmarks of higher-ranking courtesans, who were considered to be a part of the upper classes.[9]
Despite their official status as lower-class entertainers, geisha continued to grow in popularity. While courtesans existed to meet the needs of upper-class men (who could not respectably be seen to visit a lower-class prostitute) and prostitutes met the sexual needs of lower-class men, this left a gap of skilled and refined entertainers for the emerging merchant classes, who, though wealthy, were unable to access courtesans because of their social class.
The status of courtesans as celebrities and arbiters of fashion had also waned considerably. The art forms they practiced had become stiffly-cherished relics of the upper classes, as had their manner of speech and their increasingly gaudy appearance. In contrast, machi geisha (lit. 'town geisha') had begun to successfully establish themselves as worldly, cutting-edge entertainers, more artistically daring than their cloistered, indentured cousins, and able to come and go and dress as they pleased.[citation needed]
This popularity was then increased by the introduction of various laws intended to clamp down on and regulate the lower classes – in particular, the emerging merchant classes who had established themselves as the premiere patrons of geisha. Both had, over time, come to hold much of the purchasing power within Japan, with their status as lower class allowing them a degree of freedom in their tastes of dress and entertainment, in contrast to upper-class families who had little choice but to appear in a manner deemed respectable to their status.[citation needed]
As the tastes of the merchant classes for kabuki and geisha became widely popular, laws introduced to effectively neuter the appearances and tastes of geisha and their customers were passed. This, however, had the adverse effect of leading to the rise in popularity of more refined and subversive aesthetical senses within those classes, further alienating courtesans and their patrons from popularity and contemporary taste; the introduction of laws on dress only furthered the popularity of geisha as refined and fashionable companions for men. As a result, over time, courtesans of both higher and lower ranks began to fall out of fashion, seen as gaudy and old-fashioned.[citation needed]
By the 1830s, geisha were considered to be the premiere fashion and style icons in Japanese society, and were emulated by women of the time.[24] Many fashion trends started by geisha soon became widely popular, with some continuing to this day; the wearing of haori by women, for example, was first started by geisha from the Tokyo hanamachi of Fukagawa in the early 1800s.
There were considered to be many classifications and ranks of geisha, though some were colloquial or closer to a tongue-in-cheek nicknames than an official ranking. Some geisha would sleep with their customers, whereas others would not, leading to distinctions such as kuruwa geisha – a geisha who slept with customers as well as entertaining them through performing arts – yujō ("prostitute") and jorō ("whore") geisha, whose only entertainment for male customers was sex, and machi geisha, who did not, officially and in reality, sleep with customers at all.[25]
By the end of the 19th century, courtesans no longer held the celebrity status they once did.[c]
This trend would continue until the criminalisation of prostitution in Japan in 1956.
Pre-war and wartime geisha
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World War II brought lasting change to the geisha profession; before the war, geisha numbers, despite seeing competition from jokyū (café girls, the precursor to the bar hostess profession in Japan), had been as high as 80,000,[9]: 84 [27] however, following the closure of all geisha districts in 1944, mostly all geisha had been conscripted into the war effort proper, with many finding work in factories or elsewhere through customers and patrons.
Though geisha returned to the karyūkai relatively quickly after the war, many had decided to stay on in their wartime jobs, considering it to be a more stable form of employment. Both during and after the war, the geisha name lost some status, as some prostitutes began referring to themselves as "geisha girls" to members of the American military occupying Japan.[9]
Post-war geisha
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In 1945, the karyūkai saw restrictions on its practices lifted with teahouses, bars, and geisha houses (okiya) allowed to open again. Though many geisha did not return to the hanamachi after the war, it was evident that working as a geisha was still considered to be a lucrative and viable career, with numbers increasing quickly. The vast majority of geisha after the war were aged 20–24, as many retired in their mid-twenties after finding a patron – a trend carried over from the pre-war karyūkai:
I showed the mother of the Yamabuki [okiya, in 1975] some statistics on the age distribution of the geisha population in the 1920s. She remarked on the big dip in figures when women reached the age of twenty-five. "In those days, when you found yourself a patron you could stop working. If you were lucky you would be set up in your own apartment and have a life of leisure, taking lessons when you wanted to for your own enjoyment [...] I think it's pretty unusual nowadays for a geisha to stop working when she gets a patron."[9]: 202–203
The status of geisha in Japanese society also changed drastically after the war. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, much discussion had taken place surrounding the status of geisha in a rapidly-Westernising Japanese society. Some geisha had begun to experiment with wearing Western clothing to engagements, learning Western-style dancing, and serving cocktails to customers instead of sake. The image of a "modern" pre-war geisha had been viewed by some as unprofessional and a betrayal of the profession's image, but as a necessary change and an obvious evolution by others. However, the incumbent pressures of the war rapidly turned the tide against Westernisation, leading to an effective abandonment of most radical "Western-style" geisha experiments.[d]
After the war, geisha unanimously returned to wearing kimono and practicing the traditional arts, abandoning all experimental geisha styles of appearance and entertainment. This, however, led to the final blow for the profession's reputation as fashionable in wider society; though the geisha did not experience the rapid decline and eventual death that courtesans had experienced in the previous century, they were instead rendered as "protectors of tradition" in favour of preserving the image geisha had cultivated over time.[9]
Nonetheless, in the decades after the war, the profession's practices still underwent some changes. Following the introduction of the Prostitution Prevention Law in 1956, geisha benefited from the official criminalisation of practices such as mizuage, a practice that had at times been undertaken coercively or through force by some maiko in mostly pre-war Japan. Despite this, the misconception of geisha being on some level prostitutes and of mizuage being a common practice continues, inaccurately, to this day.[28]
After Japan lost the war, geisha dispersed and the profession was in shambles. When they regrouped during the Occupation and began to flourish in the 1960s during Japan's postwar economic boom, the geisha world changed. In modern Japan, girls are not sold into indentured service. Nowadays, a geisha's sex life is her private affair.[29]
From the 1930s onwards, the rise of the jokyū bar hostess began to overshadow geisha as the premiere profession of entertainment at parties and outings for men.[30] In 1959, the Standard-Examiner reported the plight of geisha in an article written for the magazine Bungei Shunju by Japanese businessman Tsûsai Sugawara. Sugawara stated that girls now "prefer[red] to become dancers, models, and cabaret and bar hostesses rather than start [the] training in music and dancing at the age of seven or eight" necessary to become geisha at the time.[31]
Compulsory education laws passed in the 1960s effectively shortened the period of training for geisha apprentices, as girls could no longer be taken on at a young age to be trained throughout their teenage years. This led to a decline in women entering the profession, as most okiya required a recruit to be at least somewhat competent and trained in the arts she would later go on to use as a geisha;[32] by about 1975, okiya mothers in Kyoto began accepting both recruits from different areas of Japan in larger numbers, and recruits with little to no previous experience in the traditional arts. Before this point, the number of maiko in had dropped from 80 to just 30 between 1965 and 1975.[6]
By 1975, the average age of a geisha in the Ponto-chō district of Kyoto was roughly 39, with the vast majority being aged 35–49.[9] The population of geisha at this time was also surprisingly high, roughly equivalent to the numbers of young women within the profession; geisha no longer retired young when they found a patron, and were less likely than other women of the same age to have both children and an extended family to support them. In 1989, it was reported in the New York Times that there were an estimated 600-700 geisha left throughout the whole of Japan
Modern geisha mostly still live in okiya they are affiliated with, particularly during their apprenticeship, and are legally required to be registered to one, though they may not live there every day. Many experienced geisha are successful enough to choose to live independently, though living independently is more common in some geisha districts – such as those in Tokyo – than others.
Geisha are often hired to attend parties and gatherings, traditionally at tea houses or traditional Japanese restaurants (ryōtei).[34] The charge for a geisha's time, previously determined by the time it took to burn one incense stick (known as senkōdai (線香代, "incense stick fee")) or gyokudai (玉代, "jewel fee"), was modernised during the 19th century to a flat fee charged per hour.[9] In Kyoto, the terms ohana (お花) and hanadai (花代) (both meaning "flower fees") are used instead as part of the Kyoto dialect. However, appointments and arrangements are still made by the mother of the house (the okasan) through the official registry office (検番, kenban), which keeps a record of both the appointments taken by a geisha and her schedule.
In modern Japan, geisha and their apprentices are a rarer sight outside of the hanamachi or chayagai (茶屋街, "tea house district", often referred to as "entertainment district"); most sightings of geisha and maiko in and around cities such as Kyoto are actually tourists who pay a fee to be dressed up as either a maiko or geisha for the day, a practice known as henshin.[35][e]
Over time the number of geisha has declined, despite the efforts of those within the profession. Factors include the nature of the economy, declining interest in the traditional arts, the exclusive and closed-off nature of the karyūkai, and the expense of being entertained by geisha.[f] The number of maiko and geisha in Kyoto fell from 76 and 548 in 1965 respectively to just 71 and 202 in 2006[6] as a result.
However, following the advent of wider accessibility to the internet from the mid-2000s onwards, a greater number of recruits have decided to join the profession with no existing ties to the karyūkai through watching online documentaries and reading websites set up by okiya to promote their business;[35] documentary pieces commonly inspire young women to join the profession, such as the geisha Satsuki, who later became the most popular geisha in Gion for a seven-year period:
[Geisha] Satsuki first took an interest in the kagai while a middle school student in Osaka, at around the age of 14, after seeing a documentary about a maiko's training. "I already had heard of maiko, but it was when I saw the documentary that I thought – I want to do that."[37]
In recent years, a growing number of geisha have complained to the authorities about being pursued and harassed by groups of tourists keen to take their photograph when out walking. As a result, tourists in Kyoto have been warned not to harass geisha on the streets, with local residents of the city and businesses in the areas surrounding the hanamachi of Kyoto launching patrols throughout Gion in order to prevent tourists from doing so.
A geisha's appearance changes symbolically throughout her career, representing her training and seniority. Apprentice geisha typically appear in one style of dress, the most formal, the entire time they are working: a long-sleeved kimono with a trailing skirt, a formal obi which may be extremely long, full white makeup and a traditional hairstyle, which is done using the apprentice's own hair. A geisha, in contrast, may not be called to wear her most formal outfit (a trailing kurotomesode with an obi of matching formality, a wig and full white makeup) to every engagement.
Though apprentice geisha appear in their most formal dress when attending engagements all of the time, this appearance is not static, and the seniority of apprentices can generally be distinguished visually by changes to makeup, hairstyle and hair accessories. When an apprentice becomes a full geisha, her style of kimono changes from a long-sleeved one with a typically long obi to a short-sleeved one with an obi of the same length worn by any woman who wears a kimono; she may not wear a kimono with a trailing skirt to every banquet, and may choose not to wear white makeup and a wig at all as she grows older.
Changes, and style of appearance, vary depending on the region of Japan a geisha or apprentice geisha works in; however, there is a general progression of appearance that can be seen as applicable to all geisha.
Geisha have been the subject of numerous films, books, and television shows.
Films
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Sisters of the Gion (1936)—Dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
The Life of Oharu (Saikaku Ichidai Onna (西鶴一代女)) (1952)—Dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
A Geisha (Gion bayashi (祇園囃子)) (1953)—Dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956)—Dir. Daniel Mann
The Barbarian and the Geisha (1958)—Dir. John Huston
The Geisha Boy (1958)—Dir. Frank Tashlin
Late Chrysanthemums (Bangiku) (1958)—Dir. Mikio Naruse
Cry for Happy (1961)—George Marshall comedy
My Geisha (1962)—Dir. Jack Cardiff
The Wolves (1971)—Dir. Hideo Gosha
The World of Geisha (1973)—Dir. Tatsumi Kumashiro
In the Realm of the Senses (1976)—Dir. Nagisa Oshima
A-Ge-Man: Tales of a Golden Geisha (1990)—Dir. Juzo Itami
Ihara Saikaku Koshoku Ichidai Otoko (1991)—Dir. Yukio Abe
The Geisha House (1999)—Dir. Kinji Fukasaku
The Sea is Watching (2002)—Dir. Kei Kumai
Zatoichi (2003)—Dir. Takeshi Kitano
Fighter in the Wind (2004)—Dir. Yang Yun-ho
Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)—Dir. Rob Marshall
Wakeful Nights (2005)—Dir. Masahiko Tsugawa
Maiko Haaaan!!! (2007)—Dir. Nobuo Mizuta
Lady Maiko (2014)—Dir. Masayuki Suo
Manga
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Kiyo in Kyoto (2016-present)
Television
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The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House (2023)