Women of the Pleasure Quarters (36 page)

ry
    currency in Edo-period Japan worth 4 gold nuggets; about $450 in contemporary currency.

ry
tei
    high-class Tokyo restaurant, serving Japanese haute cuisine and where geisha can be called to entertain.

saké
    “rice wine”; served hot in winter and chilled in summer.

sakko
    hairstyle worn for the last month before a maiko graduates to become a geisha.

samurai
    warriors who served the warlords of old Japan; highest class in the Tokugawa ranking system.

-san
    “Mr.” or “Ms.”; polite suffix normally added to names.

sancha
    teahouse waitresses-
cum
-courtesans in old Japan.

san-san-kudo
    “three times three, nine times”; ritual exchange of cups of saké in a wedding ceremony or maiko’s ceremony of sisterhood.

sensei
    teacher.

seppuku
    ritual suicide as practiced by samurai; the English term “hara-kiri” is incorrect.

shamisen
    literally “three taste strings” or “strings of three tastes”; three-stringed banjo-like instrument played with a plectrum, associated with kabuki and geisha.

shikitari
    tradition, custom.

shikomi
    “in training”; first stage in a geisha house, before
minarai
; the new entrant acts as a housemaid, goes to school, and takes her first classes in music and dance.

Shint
    “The Way of the Gods”; native Japanese religion. Shinto places of worship are usually red-painted and referred to as “shrines” to differentiate them from Buddhist temples.

shiraby
shi
    “white rhythm”; song and dance performance characterized by a strongly marked rhythm and popular in the twelfth century; the word is also used to refer to the dancer/prostitutes who practiced it.

sh
gun
    “generalissimo”; military ruler of Japan during the Edo period, nominally under the emperor but in reality all-powerful.

shogunate
    the shogun’s government.

sui
    ideal of “chic” or “sophistication” in seventeenth-century Kyoto and Osaka.

tabi
    white linen socks with the big toe separated.

taikomochi
    “drum-bearer”; jester or male geisha.

tamago
    “egg”; used to refer to
shikomi,
the first stage of maiko training.

tatami
    rice straw matting, several inches thick, inset to make the floor of a traditional Japanese room.

tay
    highest rank of courtesan in Kyoto in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

tokonoma
    alcove which forms part of a Japanese room and always contains a flower arrangement and a hanging scroll; the position of honor, where the guest is seated, is in front of the tokonoma.

torii
    portal marking the entrance to a Shinto shrine, made of wood, painted red, and shaped rather like a Stonehenge henge.

tsu
    a sophisticated man about town, a connoisseur.

tsuzumi
    a small hourglass-shaped hand drum.

ukiyo
      “the floating world”; a Buddhist term meaning “the transience of all things,” adopted to refer to the world of the courtesans.

ukiyo-e
      “painting of the floating world”; woodblock print of the courtesans of the pleasure quarters.

waka
      classical Japanese poetic form of thirty-one syllables.

ware-shinobu
      maiko’s first hairstyle.

yakko-shimada
      sweeping, elegant maiko hairstyle worn for the New Year celebrations.

yakuza
      Japanese Mafia.

yukata
      simple cotton kimono used for informal occasions or as a dressing gown-
cum
-nightwear.

Also by Lesley Downer

On the Narrow Road

The Brothers: The Hidden World of Japan’s Richest Family

WOMEN OF THE PLEASURE QUARTERS
. Copyright © 2001 by Lesley Downer. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information, address Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc., 1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Downer, Lesley.

     Women of the pleasure quarters: the secret history of the geisha/Lesley Downer.

          p.       cm.

     Includes bibliographical references and index.

     1. Geishas.  I. Title.

  GT3412  .D68  2001

  792.7’028’0952—dc21           00-049409

A slightly different version of this book was published in 2000 in the United Kingdom by Headline Book Publishing Ltd. under the title
Geisha
.

eISBN: 978-0-7679-0972-3

v3.0