Kyoto - Geisha

The Old World is Dead
It's always a bit sad.  I romanticize my travels, expecting to step into some ancient world and become annoyed when I don't find it.  Like an idiot, I looked for real geisha in Kyoto.  I found instead the most dispiriting imitation - foreigners who paid to be made up and pulled around the streets.  They were probably looking for the same thing I was and were equally annoyed to be gawked at and photoed by some dummy in flipflops.  However, if you look in a different way, the past is there, right in front of you.

In old world Kyoto, the geisha were renown for their artistic abilities and entertained the famous patrons of the times.  Many mistake geisha culture for prostitution but it was nothing of the sort.  They were entertainers, they sat and chatted with you, sang songs, flattered you, made you a bit less lonely.  You paid for their company, nothing more.  This old world is dead yet it lives on, dressed in different clothes.  Kyoto's geisha spirit is still alive, actually.....

It's become equal opportunity.  Now even the men dress up, tease their hair, gaze into paying women's eyes and pretend to fall in love.  All over Gion, there are signboards beckoning women to plunk down a couple hundred bucks, drink to their hearts content, have a pretty man-boy flirt with you, listen to your problems, hang on your every word.  Brilliant.  I offered to pay Dodo's entry fee but she declined with a smirk.  No fun.