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Geisha [Gei:sha]
In Japanese, the two characters stand for accomplished person.
Gei = accomplished
Sha = person
However, "sha" is really quite clinical. A gaku:sha is a scholar (learned person), an unten:sha is a driver (like of a taxi), and, more macabrely, hi:baku:sha is a survivor of the atomic bombings.
So Geisha is not a sublimely poetic term, even if its meaning is singular and alluring. Still, Geisha is how it's known in the West.
The soul of Japan has lived in Heian-kyo since the late 8th century. Today known as Kyoto, it is like Paris to the French: where taste is made. Or, if one wants to concede a larger role for China in the grand scheme of things, it is like Milan is to Europe, or the world. Point being: centuries of refinement piled upon refinement. Thanks to Henry L. Stimpson (and also the Cultural Revolution in China) there are few places in the world today with such pockets of an exquisitely otherworldly urbanism.
It is out of this otherworldliness that a worldwide fascination originates.
In Kyoto-ben or dialect, they use Geiko. The "ko" has a more feminine, gentle ring to it. For example, an odori-ko is a dancing girl (as in folk dance, someone who embodies the virtues of Japanese-ness as they are expressed in native dance forms -- not a dance-hall dancing girl!) Or a mai:ko is the apprentice Geisha. So one can clearly see the understated tendencies of Kyoto-ben.
Apropos of the movie, Rex Reed writes, rather elegantly, of the role of Geisha in Japan:
A geisha is not a prostitute... She is a woman of education and charisma, trained to be a glamorous and intelligent companion to men of wealth and influence. She must sing, dance, play a musical instrument, listen compassionately to her client’s problems and opinions, laugh at his jokes, and perfect the art of serving tea. A geisha shares her mind and manners, not her body.
Our fascination with her as a concept (if not the individual) is the emphasis on the manners and art embedded in the ideographic naming of the concept. Reed, perhaps, goes a trifle too far in suggesting that sharing her body is utterly incompatible with the calling. Perhaps it is more like the priest and the altarboy: not the rhetoric, but on occasion the practice.
Though rendered with the Latin leters "Gei" in the Hepburn transliteration system, an effective (not affected) way to prounounce it is "Gay" -- as in fag, queer. Say it to yourself.
Gay-sha
Gay-sha
GAY-SHA
This is rather convenient -- some might say too much so. But except for the bit about learning the tea ceremony, the male-male equivalent of the Geisha exists here in the US (and I'd suspect in large western European cities as well). There are legions of ivy-educated boys (and men) out there who are buff and brilliant. And cunning.
Alliteratively agile (technically, that's assonance). Beautiful bods. With brains. Who can argue, authoritatively, about the sequencing of Louis XIV's mistresses, and then go on to regale you about significance and consequences, both political and aesthetic, of the rise to power of La Pompadour . Who can divebomb like a pelican (if you've seen it, you understand) from the lofty to the crass, and wrestle in the gutter with Jackie Beat and Varla Jean --girls, it's the highest of compliments. You, along with Evie Harris, are my idols!
Who can give you their body, but maintain reserve when it comes to their souls...
To learn more of the life of the Gay:sha, read on.
To contact the Gay:sha thegaysha@memoirsofagaysha.com
But do take a moment to stop and smell the roses by savoring the New Yorker cartoon humor below. And don't forget to look for the epigrams and witticisms with which I've peppered the site. They're mostly bitchy & wry; only on occassion, gloomy. They date from a point in my growth at which I thought it was better to be well-read than buff, clad in Gucci rather than naked and intimate. Live & learn.
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