Memories of a Geisha

April 02, 2015

Memories of a Geisha published in 1997 is a story of a geisha who was born in a poor fishing village in northern Kyoto around the end of Taisyo Period. The author is Arthur Golden who had studied Japanese art history. That's why this book was researched much and depicted well about Japanese life and Japanese culture. I was able to read this without any feeling of strangeness.

A couple of years ago, I've been asked about a geisha from a foreign young woman. Since she frequently told me "geisha, geisha...", I said to her coldly, "I'm not interested in a geisha and maybe most Japanese haven't met or talked with any geisha. It's something in the past." At that time, I haven't read this book yet. So I misunderstood that she mentioned an old book or something that was written by a foreigner in Meiji Period.

When I read this book, I fully understood that the book she mentioned was this "Memories of a Geisha". I guess she has also watched the movie of this book.

Novels about Japan or Japanese written by foreigners give a feeling of strangeness to us. But I think this book is very natural for Japanese and it's as if this was written by a Japanese writer. And also this is easy to read for English learners.

As for characters of this book, most Japanese would imagine the chairman Sayuri loved is Konosuke Matsushita, the founder of Panasonic. Nobu is a rare name in Japan, and he is one-armed and ugly man, but he was played by Koji Yakusho in the movie. Yakusho is not ugly. Zhang Ziyi in the movie is beautiful.

I've never been to Gion. In mid-January, I secretly went to Gion after a meeting in Itami City. When I got to Sanjyo station, my wife e-mailed me that my elder daughter was giving birth to a baby now. After visiting Ponto-cho and Gion, I headed for the hospital in a hurry.

I wrote this article in haste because I'm leaving for London tonight.