All that glitters is not true geisha in Kyoto

Women transformed into maiko can take the costume on to the streets. Photo / Kristin Johanssen

Around sunset, you might glimpse her.

In the laneways of Pontocho district, where red lanterns bob beneath the eves of pub-restaurants, called izakaya, and hostesses in soft-coloured kimono usher diners into their traditional ryotei restaurants, she may be seen scurrying to her first appointment at a nearby tea house.

The sight of this elusive woman, swathed in silk kimono and richly embroidered obi sash, with a snow-white powdered face, painted red lips, and trinkets in her hair, never fails to enthrall in one of Kyoto's oldest and best known entertainment quarters.

Hanamachi, or "flower towns", like Pontocho, are the domain of geisha, or geiko, as they are called in Kyoto.

Not to be confused with oiran, the high-class call girls of Japan's feudal era, true geisha were entertainers. The word "gei-sha" means "person of the arts".

The services of these well-spoken and lavishly-dressed young women, skilled in playing koto (traditional harp), fue (flute), shamisen (three-stringed banjo) and dance, could only be afforded by the city's merchants, lords, and high-ranking samurai.

Both Pontocho and nearby Gion, another hanamachi famous for its traditional ryotei and tea houses, are places where the vanishing arts of the geisha and maiko (apprentice geiko) can still be enjoyed, albeit at a high price. Appointments are necessary and many tea houses will not charge less than $300 per guest for a geisha to attend a party for a two-hour period.

Realistically, most travellers to Kyoto won't have that kind of money to splurge on a night on the town, thus many opt for the next best thing - geisha-spotting in atmospheric old streets like Hanamikoji in Gion, or the area between Sanjo-dori and Shijo-dori in Pontocho. Your best chance will be around dusk when many geiko and maiko are tottering off work.

Would-be spotters, however, should bear in mind the proverb that goes: "Hito wa mikake ni yoranai mono" - "Appearances can be deceiving".

In past years, a thriving business in maiko-henshin, or "maiko transformation", has emerged in Kyoto and now offers young (and not-so-young) women the chance to fulfil a fantasy of dressing up and stepping out into the streets as an apprentice geiko, or even geiko, for a day.

"Japanese women love to wear the latest fashions, but sometimes they want to return to their roots. Dressing in the kimono style and make-up of a Kyoto maiko-san is one way of doing this. And it's fun," says Masami Hamada, a 36-year-old housewife from western Honshu's Himeji city, who waits at Studio Shiki, a long-running maiko-henshin company located near Kyomizu temple in the hillside neighbourhoods of eastern Kyoto.

While about 40 studios give women, both Japanese and non-Japanese, the opportunity to transform themselves into geiko and maiko, you would be hard-pressed to find a customer who feels bad about impersonating the city's most famous icon.

"For me, the real maiko-san are just so gorgeous," says Hamada. "Their kimono are elegant and stylish and the way they move is extremely feminine. Their lifestyle seems far more mysterious and exotic than my own."

Business is brisk in the makeover trade, with about 80,000 tourists a year paying between $170-$270 for a makeover which takes 60 minutes and includes kimono, wig, cosmetics, a studio photo shoot with three take-home portraits and an optional 30-minute stroll around the neighbourhoods of eastern Kyoto.

Kimono designs, makeup quality and prices vary from studio to studio, with some places offering packages which cost up to $650 for album "glamour" shoots and the chance to don a designer-label kimono.

Other options may include having your pictures turned into printed sticker sheets, postcards, key ring holders and senja-fuda, the traditional calling card of the maiko.

At Studio Shiki, the excitable giggles of waiting customers are audible from the street. One by one they are called into the changing salon and asked to select a design from a rack straining with thickly embroidered kimono.

Then, after being wrapped in a plain white cotton robe and seated, the makeup session begins with a smothering of sticky chalk-white foundation, called doran - the trademark of the maiko and geisha. This is followed by a dusting of pink blush across the cheeks, with rouge applied lightly to the eyelids and then thickly to create a set of small, strawberry-shaped lips. Coal-black eyebrows are pencilled in to complete the look.

"It's wonderfully simple, yet the effect is so exotic," Hamada says of her new face, barely managing to smile beneath the thick layer of doran.

Aspiring maiko are spared the tedium of doing their own hair, which real-life apprentices must do daily, thanks to ready-made wigs.

Not all customers can handle the weight of this massive hairpiece, which is clamped to the head so tightly that it occasionally induces nausea and vomiting in some customers, while leaving a painful impression on the scalps of others. "If we didn't attach the wigs so firmly we'd have geiko losing their heads all over Gion," smiles one Studio Shiki staff member.

Once the studio photos have been taken, it is into the streets of the ancient capital that many would-be maiko and geiko choose to step. Most studios allow a 30-minute stroll for an extra charge, and usually in the company of a staff member who will recommend the most scenic route and keep the more shakier-of-leg from toppling over in their towering okobo wooden clogs.

It is worth remembering during autumn, when the hillsides are burning with red and orange maple tree leaves, the streets surrounding Kiyomizu temple teem with sightseers looking for that special photo. Step out dressed as a geisha around this time and you may just be it.

GETTING THERE:
Air New Zealand operates daily B777 flights to Tokyo but services reduce to five per week from May 10. See www.airnz.co.nz

GEISHA:
Studio Shiki is at Masuya-cho, Koudaiji, Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto. See www.maiko-henshin.com/english/. Yume Koubou is at 2F JKK Bldg, 45 kitanouchi-cho, Kujou Minami-ku, Kyoto. This is a large maiko
henshin company with studios opposite the Kyoto train station. See
www.yumekoubou.info/english/

FURTHER INFORMATION:
Japan National Tourist Organisation's website at www.jnto.go.jp