The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1914-05-02
PAID TO FLIRT.
How Singing -Dancing Girls Are En-.
ployed i'm Jap Tea Rooms.


Pearson's Weekly: An event hith-
erto unheard of has just happened
in Japan-an English girl has be-
come a geisha.
When she first applied for her Ii
cense the officials at the Kokohoma
municipal Office are said to have
doubted her sanity, for never pre-
viously had a white woman endeav-
ored to join the ranks of the geisha,
but ultimately, seeing that she was
quite sane and in earnest, they con-
sented to register her under the
name of lie ma.
1t is characteristic of her race
that she should have succeeded in
entering an occupation that native
girls have to train for from the age
of Z, and put in four years of hard
work before they are considered
sufficiently proficient to be licensed;
the English have a way of doing
things like that.
True, Lena is well acquainted with
Japanese customs, and is also an ex-
pert player of the samisen, which is
the kind of guitar which the geisha
accompany their singing on, but
these accom- plishments by no
constitute the whole arts required
by the calling. Besides being sing
ers, the geisha are also dancers, and
in addition professional %firts."
To be a professional flirt" sounds
rather dreadful to our ideas, but the
Japanese do not regard flirting quite
as we do, and the geisha are, for the
most part, proper young women.
They hold much the same position as
actresses do here; and their work is
chiefly to entertain the patrons Of
the geisha houses, which are tea
shops providing entertainments.
The geisha's mission Is to make
life merry and bright, and they have
been described as the wittiest and
best dressed women of Japan" Usu-
ally they wear clothes of stiff bro
cade, brilliant in coloring and very
| costly. They are not necessarily
beautiful girls. but they must be full
oil charm and fascination. "Nekko,"
which means cat, is their nickname,
but there is nothing "catty" about
them in one sense.
They are nearly always small and
look very childish, and their make
up" is elaborate. Their faces are
pipe-clayed a lead white, their lips
Redeemed with cochineal, their eye
brows shaw ed and their hair adorned
with flowers.
their voices are not beautiful TO
English ears, being small and rather
cracked" and their dancing, per
formed wit h wells. fans and tambou-
rines, is inclined to be monotonous,
according to European standards,
But they please the Japanese might
ily-and that is what they are paid
to do.
For fest i've occasions the geisha
are in much demand, and no enter
tainment AT the house of a well to do
Japanese is complete without geisha.
When geisha are employed at pri-
yate houses each may be accompani-
ed there by a chaperone, thus giving
an air of strict propriety to the al
fair.
The professional life of the geisha
is not a very long one; at the age
when the average English girl is
making her debut in society, the gel.
sha has married and settled down,
or else started a school for geisha
on her own account. The fact that
a girl has been a professional fiirt'
is no bar TO her making a good mar.
riage in Japan; on the contrary, II
is frequently a help, for she gets to
know men she otherwise might not
Like most Japanses women, the
geisha are regular smokers. All gel
sha keep little brass, "three-whiff'
pipes up the sleeves of their gowns
and when they feel faint or want re.
freshing they light up instead of us,
ing a fan, for instance.
The geisha, who must not be con.
founded with mousmees, who are
merely Mattresses, are amazingly
clean people. They have three oil
four baths-always boiling hot one:
EVERY day.
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