Japan Navigator

Good news for Kyoto’s Flower Towns: the profession of Maiko is again popular under young women! As Asahi.com reports:

The number of maiko has bounced back to 100, the highest in more than four decades, thanks to the growing interest in Kyoto’s traditional geisha culture.

I do not know if this surge in interest is attributable to a film like Maiko Haaan!!, or the influence of blogging maiko…

[Maiko dance during Miyako Odori]

But the life of a maiko is not easy, as these rules on the website of the Ookini Zaidan, the Kyoto Traditional Musical Art Foundation that recruites the maiko for Kyoto’s five geisha disticts, demonstrate:

1. Maiko is an apprenticeship for those who want to become a professional female entertainer
2. Age must be between 15 and 17 (graduates from high school are already too old)
3. Length should be less than 160 cm (the okobo clogs add another 10 cm!)
4. Have physical strength and weigh more than 43 kilos (the kimono is very heavy!)
5. Parental consent (as maiko are still minors)
6. A liking of traditional Japanese song and dance (a good ear for music is necessary)
7. Enjoy a Japanese-style life (everything in the life of a maiko is Japanese-style: the kimono, the tea ceremony, ikebana, the ozashiki room with tatami where the guests are entertained - one even has to sleep using a traditional, high pillow so that the hairstyle remains intact)
8. Lots of patience and gumption (in the shikomi-period, that is the “pre-maiko training,” one not only has to learn the correct manners and the Kyoto dialect, but also do cleaning, washing and shopping for the geisha house, the okiya)
9. No monthly tuition fee required - the okiya pays for everything, including the lessons
10. The total training period (incl. shikomi) takes four to five years.

[Houses in the Gion district of Kyoto]

Aspiring maiko also have to build good relations with the other maiko and geiko in the okiya and be in everything obedient to the okaasan, the “mother” of the house - a bit like men who are in training in a sumo stable to become sumo wrestlers! How difficult that can be was shown aptly (despite all the flaws) in Memoirs of a Geisha…