Only in Japan?

Wow, it’s almost a month since my last post. I will try to keep it up a little better. Not that I think I have any readers yet, but anyways. (^^;)

Actually, it’s in the middle of the night (02.40 am) over here in Sweden, so I should be asleep. But I’m not. So I’m writing this instead.

Last week I watched Koizora (“Sky of Love”), a short 6-episode Japanese television drama-series from summer 2008. It’s about a high school couple and how they fall in love, face obstacles, and eventually overcome them. It’s cute, with some nice plotpoints, but a little overdramatic and not the best actors of the bunch. Worth watching if you like drama/love-series, but no masterpiece.

What is interesting about this drama, or actually more to the funny side, is the note at the end of each episode. A Japanese text roughly equivalent to:

“In this drama scenes are shown with two people riding one bike. This is dangerous and also forbidden by the law. Please do not do this in real life. This drama was shot in a protected environment without danger to the people involved.”

The many other bad things happening in the drama, like beatings, threats, attempted rape, class skipping and so on, were not mentioned.

I wonder if this is because people watching the drama are more likely to ride two people on one bike than to start beating other people up.

Actually, all Japanese media are very careful to point it out when a story is fiction. This counts for both television, books and manga (comics). However, I have only once before seen an “official” (not a joking “don’t-do-this-at-home-kids”) warning not to copy what happened in the story, and that was in one of the Eyeshield 21 (an American football manga) books. They mentioned that even though one of the characters had a very frequent use of lots and lots of firearms, these are forbidden in Japan.

I wonder why all of this is like it is. And why exactly riding two people on one bike was so specifically pointed out. Maybe because it’s a big problem in Japan. Not that I know of this ever causing a lot of problems, any where (even though it’s true it is more dangerous riding two instead of one on one bike), but I know it’s frequently done in Japan. Even though it’s against the law. Especially among school kids, who I guess are the ones mostly watching this kind of dramas. But anyway.

It’s actually forbidden in Sweden too, if the person peddling is not over 15 and the other under 12 years of age. Then it’s okay.

The title of this post points to the fact that as far as I know, this kind of notice is not something that would show up in many other countries.

But also to the fact that both Japanese and Wapanese (wanna-be-japanese) people are very quick to point out something as unique of Japan, even when it’s not. Like having four seasons or never entering a house with your shoes on. I think this is often kind of irritating, and sometimes almost racist. Mostly, however, it’s innocent, and more about ignorance than anything else.

I also know that I, like with this post, am probably often guilty of it myself, especially as I’m, by many people’s standards, way into the Wapanese-area.

Geisha

This is a picture I took in Gion, Kyoto, when I was there with my family summer of 2007

Yesterday I watched the movie Hana Ikusa (“Flower Battle”) with a friend. It’s based on the life of Mineko Iwasaki, the foremost geisha of Gion, Kyoto, during the seventies.

It was a very strange coincidence that we decided to watch this movie just yesterday, having no idea what it was about, because earlier that day I had seen Iwasaki’s autobiography Geisha of Gion (called Geisha, a Life in the US) in a bookstore for the very first time. I had never actually heard of this book before, but seemed interesting (I did not buy it, however), and I had no idea that there existed a film based on it.

Iwasaki wrote this book and started to work for the awareness of the life of geisha in Japan and worldwide as a contrast to Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha, which is loosely based on Iwasaki’s life. Golden interviewed Iwasaki before writing his book, and she was one of his greatest resources. However, he portrayed a lot of her experiences in a negative light, as well as added stories about selling a geisha’s virginity to the highest bidder, a custom Iwasaki claims do not exist in Gion. All and all Iwasaki was not happy about Golden’s book, nor that he mentioned her as a sources even though he had promised to keep it a secret.

I have not read Memoirs of a Geisha, but I have seen the movie from 2005. I enjoyed it, but would have liked to see it in Japanese with Japanese actors. I also knew about the issue of weather or not geisha did/do sell their bodies as well as their arts, and coupled with some other facts in the movie (like the full panted lips, as far as i know, geisha only colour the middle part of their lips), I took it as entertainment and not cultural facts.

The Hana Ikusa movie was also nice, and the special dialect is so much fun! I think this movie was made as a TV movie in Japan, and therefore it is not some kind of great movie or anything, but it was both fun and interesting to watch. Because of the formal language, many of the lines sounded stiff to my non-Japanese-speaking friends, but I think the actors did pretty well. I don’t think any of them are originally from Kyoto, though, but I’m not sure. The part of Mineko is played by Mao Inoue, who’s biggest part so far is Tsukushi, star of Hana Yori Dango (“Boys over Flowers”), in the two seasons of the TV Drama, as well as in the following movie Hana Yori Dango Final, all of which everyone should watch, since it is one of the best Japanese drama series ever made.

Back to geishas. If you want to read a non-fiction and non-biography book on geishas, I think Leslie Downer’s Geisha: The Remarkable Truth Behind the Fiction is one of the better ones. I have only read about a third of this book, and that was several years ago, but I remember it as well-written and seemingly accurate, so I think it is safe to recommend it.

If you do want to read fiction or a biography I recommend Yasunari Kawabata’s Snow Country, which also happens to be one of the greatest modern Japanese novels there is. Anything written by Kawabata is worth reading. He was also the first Japanese to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature back in 1968. Snow Country is about a man from Tokyo falling in love with a geisha in a small town in the mountainous regions of northern Japan. The life of a geisha there is very different from that of one living in Kyoto or Tokyo.

And if you want to read more about this kind of geisha, from one who actually were one, I recommend Sayo Masuda’s Autobiography of a Geisha, the actual first autobiography written by a geisha. Mineko Iwasaki, however, describes her Geisha of Gion, as being the first, and only, story told by a real geisha, and it is also often quoted as such. Even though it is not true. Masuda’s story is very straightforward and tells about the harsh life of a hot-spring resort geisha, so very far glamour and luxury. It’s a very good read.

While writing about this, I found that my copy of Masuda’s book has strangely disappeared, which makes me very sad. I do wonder if it is lost somewhere in this house, or if I lost it while still in Japan (that’s where I bought it), and if so, if I will ever get it back. Now I’m a bit sad. (TT) ((<-- this smiley really doesn't work with Times New Roman, does it?? ;P )) Well, there are lots more to be said about geishas, and lots more books and movies about them, but this is what I recommend you to start with if you want to know some things, while having a good time. I am no expert on them myself, which is why I have refrained to actually talk about geishas, and concentrated on media regarding them, on which, however, I also have a very limited knowledge, I’m afraid. Hope you enjoyed anyways!