Comprehensive information and links about Memoirs of a Geisha

Memoirs of a Geisha is a novel by Arthur Golden published in 1997. The novel tells the story of a geisha working in Kyoto prior to World War II. A film adaptation of the novel directed by Rob Marshall and starring Zhang Ziyi was released in 2005. It garnered the most Academy Award nominations for a film that did not get nominated for best picture in 2006.

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Before her mother dies, the main character Chiyo and her older sister Satsu are taken to Gion by one, Mr Tanaka. Her sister is sold to a brothel and Chiyo is sold to an okiya, a house for geisha.

With her unusual blue-grey eyes, Chiyo is to train to become a geisha, but is constantly antagonized by Hatsumomo, the top geisha of the Nitta okiya. The arrogant Hatsumomo recognises Chiyo's potential and is upset at any hint of competition. Due to Hatsumomo's machinations, Chiyo is reduced to becoming a maid in the okiya, ostensibly with no future of becoming a geisha.

An encounter with the wealthy and benevolent Chairman changes her luck. Chiyo wins the eye of the most successful geisha in Gion, Mameha, who is despised by Hatsumomo because she outshines her in every aspect and cannot be toppled because, unlike Hatsumomo, Mameha has earned her independence as a geisha. She adopts Chiyo as her apprentice and trains Chiyo to rival Hatsumomo. Chiyo's entrance into apprenticeship is marked by being given a new name: Sayuri.

With her success and her virginity sold, Sayuri not only becomes a highly successful geisha, she manages to pay off all the debts that bound her to the Nitta okiya when she was a maid and also is adopted by the mistress of the okiya. The outbreak of World War Two, a theme foreshadowed by growing reference to the Japanese military, represents, structurally, another major challenge for the heroine. Her successes are quickly made irrelevant, and her physical beauty is tarnished by manual labour and a lack of food. The life of luxury is replaced by a new reality; her personal dark valley.

During her time as a geisha before the war, she encounters the Chairman again, but finds it impossible to get close to him as she desires. Instead, she finds herself constantly being pushed to be with Nobu, the Chairman's most trusted friend. It is Nobu that saves Sayuri from the harsh labour of the war until Gion is able to open again on the condition that she will allow him to become her patron, despite the fact that it is the Chairman she desires. Sayuri and Mameha destroy Hatsumomo's reputation entirely thereafter and Hatsumomo is thrown out of the okiya.

However, it is not until she puts herself in an undesirable position that Sayuri's desire to be with the Chairman truly frees her to pursue her own destiny. When the Chairman frees her from the okiya to become his mistress, she sets up a posh teahouse for Japanese businessmen in New York so that he may save face in Japan when his daughter is about to marry a man set to be the Chairman's heir.

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. According to the plaintiff, Golden had agreed to protect her anonymity if she told him about her life as a geisha. She had requested this because of the traditional code of silence among the geisha community. Yet when the novel was released Golden thanked "Mineko Iwasaki, one of Gion’s top geisha in the 1960s and 1970s" in the acknowledgements, and there appeared to be many similarities between his heroine Sayuri and Iwasaki. Iwasaki received several death threats and was accused of dishonoring her profession for her involvement with .

Aside from failing to protect her identity, Iwasaki complained that Golden had inaccurately portrayed geisha as high class prostitutes. In the novel, Sayuri's virginity is auctioned off to the highest bidder. This plot point that particularly offended Iwasaki, who stated that not only had this never happened to her, but that no such custom existed at all in Gion.

In 2003, Iwasaki and Golden settled out of court for an undisclosed sum of money.

Film adaptation

A movie adaptation of the novel, produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment and directed by Rob Marshall, was released in the United States on December 9, 2005. It stars Zhang Ziyi, Ken Watanabe, Gong Li, Michelle Yeoh, Youki Kudoh and Suzuka Ohgo (In reality, Watanabe and Kudoh are Japanese, while Zhang, Gong are Chinese and Yeoh Malaysian of Chinese descent.) Ohgo plays the younger Sayuri in the film. The movie was filmed in southern California and in several locations in Kyoto, including the Kiyomizu-dera temple and the Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine.

Casting controversy

Some people were upset that central characters in the movie were not played by native Japanese actresses, notably that the lead role is played by a Chinese actress. It was called "a movie about Japanese played by Chinese, written by whites". The production crew paid little attention to the casting, a move that some consider ignorant pan-Asianism and a refusal to recognize the diversity of cultures in Asia.

While many people are offended by the casting, Korean-Canadian actress Sandra Oh advocates inter-Asian acting. In a recent magazine article (Bust Magazine June) and Chinese descent by pointing out similar behavior from white actors who play European characters interchangeably:

dl"Ralph Fiennes can play an English person, a German person, a Polish person, a Jewish person. He can play anything, and no one questions him. He is a handsome, Caucasian-looking-ish man. So, to American audiences, Europe looks like that. Europe does not look like that. But that is the image we have been fed for 60 years, so we accept that. But what I have big problems with is when people put those limits on me. I just think, "Give me a f*cking break. You have no idea what I am." Because when you meet someone, you never say, "I met Joe Schmoe, and he's Irish-French." But there always has to be a quantifier or qualifier when it comes to me."

Roger Ebert has also pointed out that the film was made by a Japanese-owned company, and that Gong Li and Ziyi Zhang outgross any Japanese actress even in the Japanese box office. [2]

In China, the casting caused a stir in the Chinese Internet community where some users were unhappy due to rising nationalist sentiment, especially because some mistook geisha for prostitutes. A profession similar to that of a Geisha existed in imperial China. These women were refined in art, literature, history and social manners. They lived in brothels but did not make a living by selling their bodies. Their job was to entertain male guests with their talents in music, go, calligraphy, painting and other arts, a practice known in Chinese as "selling one's talents instead of one's " (賣藝不賣身). Though highly refined and famous (involved in innumerable Chinese poems, literature, legends and folklore), they did not enjoy the status accorded to geisha in Japan. Some people unfamiliar with this cultural difference misunderstood geisha in a negative way.

Another reason for this is geisha's Chinese name. In Japan, the terms for geisha are 芸妓 and 芸者. In Chinese, it was the same 藝妓艺妓. 藝, 芸 and 艺 are three forms of one same character meaning "art", 藝 being the traditional form, 芸 used in Japan, and 艺 in mainland China. However, the second character 妓 underwent a drastic change in Chinese from a neutral term describing a woman artist to a prostitute. That's why in modern Chinese, the political correct term for geisha is 藝伎艺伎. Many people are misled by the word 妓 to regard the geishas as prostitutes.

Some argue that part of the negative reaction was due to the relative rarity of a famous actress playing a prostitute in native Chinese films, due to government pressure and the generally conservative values of Chinese society. Even in Hong Kong Michelle Yeoh was surrounded by reporters asking her why she accepted the part, although it is not unheard of for actresses to play prostitutes in Hong Kong cinema. Cecilia Cheung, for example, played a prostitute in

Banned in China

The film was originally scheduled to debut in Chinese cinemas on February 19, 2006, but the release was put on hold. Newspaper sources, such as the Shanghai based Oriental Morning Post and the Shanghai Youth Daily, quoted the fears that the film may be banned by censors; there were concerns that the casting of Chinese actresses as geishas could rouse anti-Japan sentiment and evoke memories of Japanese wartime aggression towards mainland women.[3] On February 1st, 2006, the film was declared banned in theaters of China.[4] Many Chinese citizens, however, can still watch it through pirated DVDs.[5]

Gift from a geisha

On a recent visit to Tokyo to promote the film, Zhang Ziyi received a mysterious parcel and letter, revealed to have been sent by an elderly Japanese woman who had once worked as a geisha. In her letter, the woman stated that she had been touched by the trailer of the film and expected the movie to bring back fond memories for her and her friends. Inside the parcel were several exquisitely worked antique kimono. Zhang Ziyi was moved to tears by the gesture and sent the woman an invitation to the film's Japanese premiere. McAlpin, Heller. Night Butterflies; Memoirs of a Geisha. Arthur Golden. Los Angeles Times 30 November 1997. Pg. 8.