Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-09-20
THE GE|SHA GIRL S
A Japanese Institution Like
the Tea Houses.
BOTH PRETTY TO Sell
AMERICAN TASTES REJECT THE
FooA FHouaH.
Sitting Out One Of These Banquets
is Refined Tor
ture.
BOTH PRETTY TO SEE
Written for The Evening Star.

written Tor i ne Evening Stal.
Tea houses and geisha girls make up that
mourrful ceremony a Japanese banquet;
the food Is of no consequence-to Euro
pean.
Taken separately they are not bac' your
own dinners at the foreign hotel would De
much enlivened by performances OF Selshas-
they would do as well as a yeomahry pahu
And tea houses are not so bad If you don't
take their tea. though their teas are less
awful than the dinners. unless you do the
correct thing and take sailed cherry Dies
som with them.
Janarese dinners are a refined kind Of
torture: you are expected to sit on your
heels and eat off the floor. Lovely little
mousmees. with scarlet petticoats, come
and kneel before you. But what is the use
of 1t when YOU are kneeling yourself be-
cause not being a Jap, you can't sit on
your knee? Besides your mousmee spends
oil her time In playing hide-and-seek with
your sake bottle. No good restaurant Will
let YOU drink sake that isn't hot enough
and as YOU don't drink it at all, 1t soon
gets below the proper point, and your
\ mousmee goes for more. You are behaving
very badly The Japanese never keeps his
sake waiting.
Japanese Food a Great Trial.
The food is worse trial Live fish might
do IL YOU could persuade yourself to treat
1t like an oyster, but seaweed soup, ana
lard sweetmeats. and custard made with
pickle and fish Juice are novelties too strlk-
Ing for the male European stomach. When
you are drowning you catch at straws, ana
when YOU are having Japanese banquet
you catch at anything you know by sight
like plum or potato. but 1t Is only SUBJ
tier form of torture. for the plum is sure
10 be sailed and the potato cooked IN slrup.
Even If the things were good to eat you
couldn't help yourself with chopsutcks; It's
too much like eating soup with a fork IN
deferred by your not eating, the olnner
goes on for hours. while you wonder which
will happen f1rst-your knee Joints give way
or Your calves go fiat. If you have been to
Japanese banquet before you prop your
self up against the wall That Is the only
way YOU can sit on the floor for hours The
nousmees are pretty and SO nice that II
you do get up to leave they always per-
suade YOU to kneel down again.
And when 1t is all over comes the I'M
kindest cut of all. Politeness demands that
you should make a separate excuse for
each dish you cannot eat; It's no use, for
as YOU are getting into your 'riksha your
mousmee hands you a pile of white wooden
boxes In which she has carefully packed
everything you could not eat. for you to
take to your honorable family, and ETH
quette demands that you should take them.
though you give them TO your 'riksha boy
soon as YOU are out of sight Etiquette
is the kaiser of Japan.
The Geisha a CONSIDER.
II is no good looking at geisha while you
are going through these tortures; you are
not In a state of health to make allowance
for their voices or their music, and their
wit is lost upon you, which is perhaps just
as well. The geisha. except In the kind of
ballots you get at the Maple Club, does not
suit Europeans. She dances without her
feet and sings without a voice. She does
not, the unco' guild assert, belong to the
Oldest profession in the world-not neces-
sarily. Her real function is to console thu
dissipated Japanese for the absence of
actresses in his country. Madame Sada
Sacco is Japanese woman, but western
idea.
japanese ladies have actors to fall In love
with. but the Japanese man has to fall
back on the geisha. The ancient Greeks
did not have actresses, either.
Perhaps their plays were as dull (on the
stage) as Japanese plays, which run their
banquets close. The ancient Greek was as
wise as the modern Jap: he did not want to
be separated by the footlights and the cat
gut fortunes OF the orchestra from his god
dess. The wisest Of the ancents, like the
Japanese. did not hang about stage DOORS
or send jewelry on the off chance to
actresses whom they did not know.
If you ask man to dinner and take him
TO the Gaiety afterward you spoil his dinner
or lose half the performance. Instead OF
going to the Gaiety the Japs made the Gaiety
come to them. Japanese wives are not
taught accomplishments. but virtues. which
are their only reward. The Japanese man
wants something more than actress.
The gesha Is expected to be excellent In
that way. and to be at his beck besides;
when he Is too idle to attend any more to
her dancing ard singing he beckons her to
come closer and entertain him with her
Establishments.
Not Always Beautiful.
Geishas are not always beautiful; they
are always elegant and clever; they are the
best dressed women in Japan-the Japanese
do not think 1t Iadylike for their wives to
dress well. Wives wear a sort of half
mourning. and no wonder The gesha be-
gins training for her future honors early.
Girls are chosen for cleverness at seven or
eight years old-beauty Is only considered
skin-deep for a geisha. They are trained
In dancing and singing and the art Of con-
versation.
The latter is most Important geIsha
has constantly to be bandying wit with
sake-fuddled admirers and to switch lovers
on or OFF. She is expected to sing and dance
and play. Any music hall artist in London
would promise to shoot herself IL she could
not do better with weeks practice. But
the training of these geishas extends over
1our years. and is perfect of its kind. The
popular geisha. like the popular actress. Is
much courted; she often makes brilliant
marriage.
No Japanese could understand 1.-THE Sec
ond Mrs. Tanqueray." Ladies with pasts
get married every day there; their pasts
are no objection, but they have to be pasts
when they marry; in that divorce-monger-
ing land Caesars wife ceases to be q wife
lf she is not above suspicion.
1t Is hard for Europeans to take the
eeishas seriously for all their accomplish
ments. They look like children, and ara
children-when they are not cats. It is easy
to recognize the geisha; she looks like an
angel with wings Of rich brocade a chalk
face, geranium lips, and flowers in her CLOS
~ hair. The geisha may often be seen in
rikshas with their duennas. The houses In
the Yoshiwara are glorifed tea houses, and
may be used as such. They remind one of
the Arabian Nights
Tea Houses Not Tea-Total.
But tea houses are apt to be lovely; 1t Is
their business, except those which 20 in
Tor the dull respectability of being inns A
tea house isn't tea-total. 1t Is generally not
house at all, but garden full Of summer
houses and quite often consists of nothing
but roof and view. You can never got
20 view In Japan without passing through
tea house. and your way is blocked nv
gay little mousmees who rub their knees 70.
sether and bow and hiss their respects and
give you tea 'N
They don't sell It, but you give them a
chai-dai tea representatives half-nence