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Asia and Asian peoples have typically been portrayed by western culture to fit certain perceptions. Stereotypes and pre-ordained ideas about Geisha have been created due to many reasons. These reasons are misrepresentation in Hollywood and film, a culturally western gender-based male language as the dominator of language, a lack of esthetic-cultural appreciation and understanding from foreign males who encountered geisha, and finally the confusion between the geisha and prostitute districts and what curtails as a true geisha. Orientalism, which is a western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient, by placing limitations on it and defining it as the “Other” (Said, 3, 1979), has influenced the creation and strengthening of the submissive, exotic, and decadent geisha. Unfortunately these romanticized images continue to persist and are used to give false understandings of the geisha. Geisha are defined as arts people who study classical Japanese music and dance, perform music and dance for parties, and are registered officially with a central office. (Foreman, 34, 2005, Prasso, 200, 2006) The combined proficiency at music and dance with a sense of elegance, tact, and grace that wins the respect and admiration of patrons. (Groemer, 159, 2009). They were high-end performers, and could not be afforded as entertainers by the common people. They are expected to be witty, flattering, excellent conversationalists, and have to endure long years of strict training in traditional dance or in playing the shamisen, a three-stringed instrument (Struck, 2000) Only those who were very rich could pay for the accompaniment of a Geisha. Overall, the Geisha should be interpreted as performers, just like in the west, ho... ... middle of paper ... ...tude of “geisha” that cannot be pinpointed down to a certain set of characteristics and attributes. For these reasons, the geisha have been romanticized and misrepresented. Therefore, when it comes to describing geisha, one should not make wide-sweeping statements on the group as a whole. And that the geisha are actresses selling an image, and therefore the way they display themselves while working does not transcend into their individual or necessarily defines who they are as a person. As a result, it is safe to say that anytime there is a statement made about a people group, we should question the sources and influences that have shaped the statement. And At the same we should remember that people are individuals and though they may fall under a group category, they themselves have characteristics that will not fit into the mold or stereotypes made upon the group.
In Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha, Sayuri demonstrates that when the forces of fate and free will come into collision, the lack of determination to grasp control of one’s life will lead to a
The job of a geisha is to display perfection, quietness, passive and demure qualities. Since a geisha’s beauty is half of what will determine her success, some have to work harder than others. Some geishas took...
Musui’s Story is the exciting tale of a low class samurai’s life towards the end of the Tokugawa era. Although one would normally imagine a samurai to be a noble illustrious figure, Musui’s Story portrays the rather ignominious life of an unemployed samurai. Nonetheless, this primary account demonstrates the tenacity of samurai values and privileges present at the end of the Tokugawa shogunate. The social status of samurai had been elevated to such a state that even someone like Musui was easily able to gain influence in everyday affairs with his privileges. Not only that, but he had retained his values as a warrior and still kept great pride for his arts in weaponry.
Culture can be defined as “the customary beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group that are transferred, communicated or passed along” (Webster). Culture is the glue that holds people together in times of peace and war, and can eventually lead to the emergence of cosmopolitan civilizations. In the book “Memoirs of a Geisha” by Arthur Golden, we experience the life of geisha-in-training in an okiya in Gion, Kyoto’s geisha district, during the 1930’s and 1940’s. The path of becoming a geisha is very hard, and takes a long time. In the end, the geisha grow up to know various forms of entertainment, which aid her in the entertainment of mainly male guests. Though
Other research has devoted to unveiling the origins and the development of their stereotyping and put them among the historical contextual frameworks (e.g., Kawai, 2003, 2005; Prasso, 2005). Research has shown that those stereotypes are not all without merits. The China doll/geisha girl stereotype, to some degree, presents us with a romanticized woman who embodies many feminine characteristics that are/ were valued and praised. The evolving stereotype of the Asian martial arts mistress features women power, which might have the potentials to free women from the gendered binary of proper femininity and masculinity. Nevertheless, the Western media cultural industry adopts several gender and race policing strategies so as to preserve patriarchy and White supremacy, obscuring the Asian women and diminishing the positive associations those images can possibly imply. The following section critically analyzes two cases, The Memoirs of a Geisha and Nikita, that I consider to typify the stereotypical depictions of Asian women as either the submissive, feminine geisha girl or as a powerful yet threatening martial arts lady. I also seek to examine
Geishas, which translate to artist, were skilled hostesses and entertainers. They were educated to have a knowledge of many artistic traditions. Geishas represented the charm and sophistication of high-class women and were expensive to purchase. These women were easily identifiable as they wore heavy, white makeup with read accents around the lips, eyes, and
In particular places such as Kyoto's exclusive Pontocho district and Tokyo's Akasaka nightclub strip, the Western visitor can still see the traditional Japanese geisha and glimpse what seems to be an exotic relic from the remote past. The geisha, conspicuous by her costume, her walk, and even by her mode of transport (the rickshaw), has become for many a symbol or the old Japan. In one recent descriptive travel book on Japan, for example, the following picture is painted:
Living with their traditional Chinese culture in American society, these eight Chinese-American women suffer the problems of cultural conflicts in compliance with their gender. Asian women were looked at as being "positive, subservient, compliant, quiet, delicate, exotic, romantic and easy to please" (Mulan). They are nicknamed "China dolls" or " lotus blossoms", which are sexually loaded stereotypes of Asian women. These stereotypes discriminate against women by degrading their worth as people. By men taking advantage of their obedience and submissiveness they are showing that these women are not valued and that they have no voice. Judith Butler responds to these roles by saying, "Gender is an act, a performance, a set of manipulated codes and costumes rather than a core aspect of essential identity". By the middle of this century, Chinese women had been playing this manipulative, subservient role for m...
Ukiyo is a culture that strives to live a strictly pleasure-seeking routine. The largest flaw in this way of life, as Saikaku points out, is that its superficial nature forces people to live lives as meaningless and fluffy as its name, the “Floating World,” suggests. It is shallow in the physical sense, in that it focuses primarily on “beautiful” external appearances, and in the metaphorical sense, whereby individuals never really make deep-seated connections to anyone because of their addiction to finding these so-called pleasures. One particular character that Saikaku satirizes to embody this superficial nature of Ukiyo is the old, rotting woman found on the verandah in the episode of “A Monk’s Wife in a Worldly Temple.” He cleverly employs situational irony with this character to prove his point, as it is expected for the archetypal old woman to pass moral lessons to the younger generation. By the character’s own, sorrowful admission she claims that she “can’t forget about sex” and is going to “bite right into” (Saikaku 614) the protagonist; completely the opposite of what the audience expects her to say. This satire highlights the extent to which the Ukiyo lifestyle socially conditions individuals; the old woman is so far gone down that path that she no l...
In the best-selling novel entitled Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, Golden examines the secret world of the geisha. Contrary of what is often believed, geisha are far from being prostitutes; they are more accurately High-class Japanese entertainers. Arthur Golden shows the reader a completely different look on life in looking into the lives of geisha in mid-twentieth century Gion and sends a very strong message distinguishing the geisha and the prostitutes.
The next generation of female entertainers became highly skilled in dancing, singing and playing musical instruments, such as the flute and shamisen (Japanese Geisha, n.d.). These geisha did not rely on selling sexual favors to keep a steady income. All geisha began to be trained in the art of conversation and flirting (Szczepanski, 2014). The most prized geisha were ones with an advanced talent for calligraphy, or the individuals that could improvise poetry that included hidden layers of meaning on the spot (Szczepanski, 2014).
A Geisha is a traditional Japanese entertainer. They are skilled in many things, some being playing classical music, dancing, and pottery. Geisha have played a big part in Japan's history because they have been around for so long and have entertained many of the Japanese Shoguns and Emperors. Recently the numbers of Geisha have decreased greatly and the art is slowly growing extinct. It is important to keep this tradition alive to teach future generations about the Japanese arts.
Geisha’s are effectively known to be introduced by the Japanese tradition. They are mainly known as female entertainers or courtesans who went through five years of training and sometimes beyond. Their skills and training includes performing diverse kinds of arts which can also be referred to it as a specific kind of art like playing classical music, dancing and playing games. They mainly focus on their conversation or communication skills in order to amuse their male customers, particularly because they need to make their customers happy and content. In the modern-day world Geisha’s not only work for the amusement of their male customers but also for their female patrons. It is known that people particularly from the old age often visit Japan
Orientalism is essentially the perceptions that Westerners have that distort and exaggerate the people, lives, and culture of the Middle East (Maira, 2008: 320). In Orientalism, the person defining the “Other” tends to benefit from that definition, whether it be viewing the Other a negative light and assuming oneself to be above it, or viewing the Other in a positive light and identifying oneself with that (Shay & Sellers-Young, 2003: 31). Belly dance, in turn of Orientalism, is derived from fallacious notions about the Middle Eastern culture that were implemented in the west to elucidate belly dance as a practice of the western world (...
Concisely, dance, instruments, and music have all played a strong meaningful part in helping describe the Japanese literal meaning of Kabuki, “the skill of song and dance”. Without the help of musical instruments and the dance techniques used in Kabuki theatre, the literal meaning of “Kabuki” would be misunderstood and lost in translation. Through these critical and valuable aids, the staging of this production wouldn’t be able to demonstrate the vast variety of abilities in the visual and sung performance.