JAPAN: Inflammable Issue

Throughout Nippon the tactful, fluttering geisha— and her lusty sister the joro have given rise at last to a political issue between the Kenseikai (Conservative Party) of Premier Wakatsuki and his erst- while† supporters, the Seiyuhonto (True Friends Party). The pub- licists of these embattled partisans, in their effort to cast blame for the Yoshiwara of Tokyo upon their opponents, have stirred the Japan- ese press to investigate the seat of responsibility for such resorts of incontinence throughout the Empire. Despatches reported last week that so many statesmen of both the Government Party and the opposition have been found to hold a direct financial interest not only in geisha-houses but in machai— of the lowest type that the whole issue seems likely to be dropped by both sides as too inflammable. Director of the Police Matsumura of Tokyo, interviewed, said: “Of course the Yoshiwara will be closed sometime or other, sooner or later.”

The Yoshiwara. No sooner was Tokyo laid waste by the earthquake of 1923 than the principal architects of Japan were commissioned to rebuild the Yoshiwara —a task which was completed before any other quarter of the city had been fully rebuilt. For the new Yoshiwara a harmonious Chino-Japanese style of architecture was devised— described by the North China Daily News as the most artistic to be employed in rebuilding Tokyo.

Broad, clean, tree-planted streets diverge from the Omon (Great Gate), near which stands a monument (TIME, July 26) to the 730 geisha and joro girls who perished during the earthquake. Within the quarter dwell in comparative luxury the 3,000 girls who are envied of their 50,000 lesser imitators throughout Japan.

Yoshiwara Life. Seen from within, the life of the quarter does not present the roseate aspect visible to chance Occidental visitors. The geisha must undergo a lengthy educational process during which they are taught to dance, sing, and play the long necked unmelodious samisen. Further instruction renders them expert in all the formal minutiae of welcoming, supping with, attending, and bidding good-bye to their clients.

The joro, girls deemed unworthy of such complicated training, are perfunctorily instructed by an uma.† Both geisha and joro girls are purchased in their ^eens from impoverished parents, about $500 being the lowest price deemed appropriate for a girl of geisha calibre. The geisha then technically rents an apartment from her purchaser, who advances her credit wherewith to keep up her establishment. By this subterfuge, the geisha-house owners remain legally mere landlords. Actually they hold the geisha girls who are in their debt as security until they earn enough to pay off the credits extended them. Though in many cases the geisha die before they are debt free, six years is the approximate period of service after which the geisha are able to retire wth sufficient savings to live in modest comfort.

Against this possibility of a secure old age the occupational diseases of the geisha seriously militate. Despite the fact that the girls are examined every two weeks and are sent when necessary to the splendidly equipped Yoshiwara Hospital the toll of rinbyo, baidoku and raibyo is as heavy as in the Occident.

Yoshiwara Entertainment. The Japanese publicist T. Fujimoto writes:— “A police station is established near the Omon. When you enter the gate you come to a broad street . . . and all the houses on both sides are called Hikite-chaya (guide houses for the visitors) The hostesses and maids of the house receive you very hospitably and lead you to a room upstairs. New green mats are on the floor of the room, beautiful flowers fill a large part in the alcove, and a valuable old picture hangs against the alcove wall—everything in the room makes you comfortable. . . . “(You hire geisha and taikomochi jesters). . . . Sake is served in a small cup And now the dancing girls begin to dance and at last the jester performs his funny tricks. . . .

“Now, it is near 12 p. m. and… you, guided by a maid servant. . . leave the guide housefor the ultimate end. . . .

“The abode of your mate consists of three rooms; . . . the first room is the parlor, the second the reception-room, and the third the bedroom. . . .

“It is entirely given up to your convenience whether you will leave the house at 2 or 3 a. m. or stay till morning. . . you have no need to pay even a sen here at the house. . . . Having (left her and) come back to the guide-house you are to pay the bill. . . The way above mentioned to take amusement at Yoshiwara is the one to be done by the A 1 guest. . . .”

Count Herman Keyserling declares in his now internationally famed Travel Diary of a Philosopher: “In Japan vulgarity seems remote. . . . Here charm is the essential expression of all feminine nature. . . . Since the woman sees nothing dishonoring in the surrendering of herself . . . for money and the man sees nothing shameful. . . so in these establishments there prevails an atmosphere of innocent merriment as with us perhaps among children ‘neath the Christmas Tree.”

—Literally “person of pleasing accomplishments.” tThe Cabinet having become deadlocked last spring upon a series of local problems, the four Seiyuhonto ministers resigned, were replaced from the Kenseikai. —” Waiting-meeting-places.” tLiteraUy “horse.” The chief duty of these men is to run after clients who do not pay and stick to them like a leech wherever they may go until payment is obtained. —In The Nightside of Japan.—T. Werner Laurie, Ltd., London.