ustomed to hearing. 

In all of these classes, music and dance were only part of what we learned. Because a girl 
who has mastered the various arts will still come off badly at a party if she hasn't learned 
proper comportment and behavior. This is one reason the teachers always insist upon good 
manners and bearing in their students, even when a girl is only scurrying down the hall 
toward the toilet. When you're taking a lesson in shamisen, for example, you'll be corrected 
for speaking in anything but the most proper language, or for speaking in a regional accent 
rather than in Kyoto speech, or for slouching, or walking in lumbering steps. In fact, the most 
severe scolding a girl is likely to receive probably won't be for playing her instrument badly or 
failing to learn the words to a song, but rather for having dirty fingernails, or being 
disrespectful, or something of that sort. 

Sometimes when I've talked with foreigners about my training, they've asked, "Well, when did 
you study flower arranging?" The answer is that I never did. Anyone who sits down in front of 
a man and begins to arrange flowers by way of entertaining him is likely to look up and find 
that he has laid his head down on the table to go to sleep. You must remember that a geisha, 
above all, is an entertainer and a performer. We may pour sake or tea for a man, but we 
never go and fetch another serving of pickles. And in fact, we geisha are so well pampered 
by our maids that we scarcely know how to look after ourselves or keep our own rooms 
orderly, much less adorn a room in a teahouse with flowers. 

My last lesson of the morning was in tea ceremony. This is a subject many books are written 
about, so I won't try to go into much detail. But basically, a tea ceremony is conducted by one 
or two people who sit before their guests and prepare tea in a very traditional manner, using 
beautiful cups, and whisks made from bamboo, and so forth. Even the guests are a part of 
the ceremony because they must hold the cup in a certain manner and drink from it just so. If 
you think of it as sitting down to have a nice cup of tea . . . well, it's more like a sort of dance, 
or even a meditation, conducted while kneeling. The tea itself is made from tea leaves 
ground into a powder and then whisked with boiled water into a frothy green mix we call 
matcha, which is very unpopular with foreigners. I'll admit it does look like green soapy water 
and has a bitter taste that takes a certain getting used to. 

Tea ceremony is a very important part of a geisha's training. It isn't unusual for a party at a 
private residence to begin with a brief tea ceremony. And the guests who come to see the 
seasonal dances in Gion are first served tea made by geisha. 

My tea ceremony teacher was a young woman of perhaps twenty-five who wasn't a very 
good geisha, as I later learned; but she was so obsessed with tea ceremony that she taught 
it as if every movement was absolutely holy. Because of her enthusiasm I quickly learned to 
respect her teaching, and I must say it was the perfect lesson to have at the end of a long 


morning. The atmosphere was so serene. Even now, I find tea ceremony as enjoyable as a 
good night's sleep. 

What makes a geisha's training- so difficult isn't simply the arts she must learn, but how 
hectic her life becomes. After spending all morning in lessons, she is still expected to work 
during the afternoon and evening very much as she always has. And still, she sleeps no 
more than three to five hours every night. During these years of training, if I'd been two 
people my life would probably still have been too busy. I would have been grateful if Mother 
had freed me from my chores as she had Pumpkin; but considering her bet with Mameha, I 
don't think she ever considered offering me more time for practice. Some of my chores were 
given to the maids, but most days I was responsible for more than I could manage, while still 
being expected to practice shamisen for an hour or more during the afternoon. In winter, both 
Pumpkin and I were made to toughen up our hands by holding them in ice water until we 
cried from pain, and then practice outside in the frigid air of the courtyard. I know it sounds 
terribly cruel, but it's the way things were done back then. And in fact, toughening the hands 
in this way really did help me play better. You see, stage fright drains the feeling from your 
hands; and when you've already grown accustomed to playing with hands that are numbed 
and miserable, stage fright presents much less of a problem. 

In the beginning Pumpkin and I practiced shamisen together every afternoon, right after our 
hour-long lesson in reading and writing with Auntie. We'd studied Japanese with her ever 
since my arrival, and Auntie always insisted on good behavior. But while practicing shamisen 
during the afternoon, Pumpkin and I had great fun together. If we laughed out loud Auntie or 
one of the maids would come scold us; but as long as we made very little noise and plunked 
away at our shamisens while we talked, we could get away with spending the hour enjoying 
each other's company. It was the time of day I looked forward to most. 

Then one afternoon while Pumpkin was helping me with a technique for slurring notes 
together, Hatsumomo appeared in the corridor before us. We hadn't even heard her come 
into the okiya. 

"Why, look, it's Mameha's little-sister-to-be!" she said to me. She added the "to-be" because 
Mameha and I wouldn't officially be sisters until the time of my debut as an apprentice 
geisha. 

"I might have called you 'Little Miss Stupid,' " she went on, "but after what I've just observed, I 
think I ought to save that for Pumpkin instead." 

Poor Pumpkin lowered her shamisen into her lap just like a dog putting its tail between its 
legs. "Have I done something wrong?" she asked. 

I didn't have to look directly at Hatsumomo to see the anger blooming on her face. I was 
terribly afraid of what would happen next. 

"Nothing at all!" Hatsumomo said. "I just didn't realize what a thoughtful person you are." 

"I'm sorry, Hatsumomo," Pumpkin said. "I was trying to help Chiyo by-" 

"But Chiyo doesn't want your help. When she wants help with her shamisen, she'll go to her 
teacher. Is that head of yours just a big, hollow gourd?" 

And here Hatsumomo pinched Pumpkin by the lip so hard that the shamisen slid off her lap 
onto the wooden walkway where she was seated, and fell from there onto the dirt corridor 
below. 


"You and I need to have a little talk," Hatsumomo said to her. You'll put your shamisen away, 
and I'll stand here to make sure you don't do anything else stupid." 

When Hatsumomo let go, poor Pumpkin stepped down to pick up her shamisen and begin 
disassembling it. She gave me a pitiful glanqe, and I thought she might calm down. But in 
fact her lip began to quiver; then her whole face trembled like the ground before an 
earthquake; and suddenly she dropped the pieces of her shamisen onto the walkway and put 
her hand to her lip-which had already begun to swell-while tears rolled down her cheeks. 
Hatsumomo's face softened as if the angry sky had broken, and she turned to me with a 
satisfied smile. 

"You'll have to find yourself another little friend," she said to me. "After Pumpkin and I have 
had our talk, she'll know better than to speak a word to you in the future. Won't you, 
Pumpkin?" 

Pumpkin nodded, for she had no choice; but I could see how sorry she felt. We never 
practiced shamisen together again. 

I reported this encounter to Mameha the next time I visited her apartment. 

"I hope you took to heart what Hatsumomo said to you," she told me. "If Pumpkin isn't to 
speak a word to you, then you mustn't speak a word to her either. You'll only get her into 
trouble; and besides, she'll have to tell Hatsumomo what you say. You may have trusted the 
poor girl in the past, but you mustn't any longer." 

I felt so sad at hearing this, I could hardly speak for a long while. "Trying to survive in an 
okiya with Hatsumomo," I said at last, "is like a pig trying to survive in a slaughterhouse." 

I was thinking of Pumpkin when I said this, but Mameha must have thought I meant myself. 
"You're quite right," she said. "Your only defense is to become more successful than 
Hatsumomo and drive her out." 

"But everyone says she's one of the most popular geisha. I can't imagine how I'll ever 
become more popular than she is." 

"I didn't say popular," Mameha replied. "I said successful. Going to a lot of parties isn't 
everything. I live in a spacious apartment with two maids of my own, while Hatsumomo-who 
probably goes to as many parties as I do-continues to live in the Nitta okiya. When I say 
successful, I mean a geisha who has earned her independence. Until a geisha has 
assembled her own collection of kimono-or until she's been adopted as the daughter of an 
okiya, which is just about the same thing-she'll be in someone else's power all her life. 
You've seen some of my kimono, haven't you? How do you suppose I came by them?" 

"I've been thinking that perhaps you were adopted as the daughter of an okiya before you 
came to live in this apartment." 

"I did live in an okiya until about five years ago. But the mistress there has a natural 
daughter. She would never adopt another." 

"So if I might ask . . . did you buy your entire collection of kimono yourself?" 

"How much do you think a geisha earns, Chiyo! A complete collection of kimono doesn't 
mean two or three robes for each of the seasons. Some men's lives revolve around Gion. 
They'll grow bored if they see you in the same thing night after night." 


I must have looked every bit as puzzled as I felt, for Mameha gave a laugh at the expression 
on my face. 

"Cheer up,