from Memoirs of a Geisha, chapter 14

by Arthur Golden (1997)

... I’ve heard it said that the week in which a young girl prepares for h
er debut as an apprentice geisha is like when a caterpillar turns into butterfly.
It’s a charming idea; but for the life of me I can’t imagine why anyone ever
thought up such a thing. A caterpillar has only to spin its cocoon and doze
off for a while; whereas in my case, I’m sure I never had a more exhausting
week. The first step was to have my hair done in the manner of an apprentic
e geisha, in the “split peach” style, which I’ve mentioned. Gion had quite a n
umber of hairdressers in those days; Mameha’s worked in a terribly crowded r
oom above an eel restaurant. I had to spend nearly two hours waiting my tur
n with six or eight geisha kneeling here and there, even out on the landing
of the stairwell. And I’m sorry to say that the smell of dirty hair was overpow
ering. The elaborate hairstyles geisha wore in those days required so much ef
fort and expense that no one went to the hairdresser more than once a wee
k or so; by the end of that time, even the perfumes they put in their hair we
ren’t of much help.
When at last my turn came, the first thing the hairdresser did was put
me over a large sink in a position that made me wonder if he was going to
chop off my head. Then he poured a bucket of warm water over my hair an
d began to scrub it with soap. Actually “scrub” isn’t a strong enough word, b
ecause what he did to my scalp using his fingers is more like what a workma
n does to a field using a hoe. Looking back on it, I understand why. Dandruf
f is a great problem among geisha, and very few things are more unattractive
and make the hair look more unclean. The hairdresser may have had the be
st motives, but after a while my scalp felt so raw, I was almost in tears from
the pain. Finally he said to me, “Go ahead and cry if you have to. Why do y
ou think I put you over a sink!”
I suppose this was his idea of a clever joke, because after he’d said it
he laughed out loud.
When he’d had enough of scraping his fingernails across my scalp, he
sat me on the mats to one side and tore a wooden comb through my hair u
ntil the muscles of my neck were sore from pulling against him. At length he
satisfied himself that the knots were gone, and then combed camellia oil int
o my hair, which gave it a lovely sheen. I was starting to think the worst was
over; but then he took out a bar of wax. And I must tell you that even with
camellia oil as a lubricant and a hot iron to keep the wax soft, hair and wax
were never meant to go together. It says a great deal about how civilized w
e human beings are, that a young girl can willingly sit and allow a grown ma
n to comb wax through her hair without doing anything more than whimperi
ng quietly to herself. If you tried such a thing with a dog, it would bite you
so much you’d be able to see through your hands.
When my hair was evenly waxed, the hairdresser swept the forelock ba
ck and brought the rest up into a large knot like a pincushion on the top of
the head. When viewed from the back, this pincushion has a split in it, as if
it’s cut in two, which gives the hairstyle its name of “split peach.”
Even though I wore this split-peach hairstyle for a number of years, th
ere’s something about it that never occurred to me until quite some time lat
er when a man explained it. The knot--what I’ve called the “pincushion”--is fo
rmed by wrapping the hair around a piece of fabric. In back where the knot i
s split, the fabric is left visible; it might be any design or color, but in the ca
se of an apprentice geisha--after a certain point in her life, at least--it’s alway
s red silk. One night a man said to me:
“Most of these innocent little girls have no idea how provocative the ‘s
plit peach’ hairstyle really is! Imagine that you’re walking along behind a youn
g geisha, thinking all sorts of naughty thoughts about what you might like to
do to her, and then you see on her head this split-peach shape, with a big
splash of red inside the cleft... And what do you think of?”
Well, I didn’t think of anything at all, and I told him so.
“You aren’t using your imagination!” he said.
After a moment I understood and turned so red he laughed to see it.

...
Every afternoon during the week leading up to my debut, Auntie dress
ed me in the complete regalia of an apprentice geisha and made me walk u
p and down the dirt corridor of the okiya to build up my strength. ...In the c
ase of an apprentice geisha, this means the most dramatic fashion of all, a d
arari-obi-- “dangling obi”--knotted almost as high as the shoulder blades, and
with the ends hanging nearly to the ground. No matter how brightly colored
a kimono might be, the obi is nearly always brighter. When an apprentice g
eisha walks down the street in front of you, you notice not her kimono but r
ather her brilliantly colored, dangling obi--with just a margin of kimono showi
ng at the shoulders and on the sides. To achieve this effect, the obi must be
so long that it stretches all the way from one end of a room to the other.
But it isn’t the length of the obi that makes it hard to wear; it’s the weight, f
or it’s nearly always made of heavy silk brocade. Just to carry it up the stairs
is exhausting, so you can imagine how it feels to wear it--the thick band of i
t squeezing your middle like one of those awful snakes, and the heavy fabric
hanging behind, making you feel as if someone has strapped a traveling truck
to your back.
To make matters worse, the kimono itself is also heavy, with long, swi
nging sleeves. I don’t mean sleeves that drape over the hand onto the groun
d. You may have noticed that when a woman is wearing kimono and stretche
s out her arms, the fabric below the sleeve hangs down to form something li
ke a pocket. This baggy pocket, which we call the furi, is the part that’s so lo
ng on the kimono of an apprentice geisha. It can easily drag along the grou
nd if a girl isn’t careful; and when she dances, she will certainly trip over her
sleeves if she doesn’t wrap them many times around the forearm to keep the
m out of the way.
Years later a famous scientist from Kyoto University, when he was very
drunk one night, said something about the costume of an apprentice geisha t
hat I’ve never forgotten. “The mandrill of central Africa is often considered th
e showiest of primates,” he said. “But I believe the apprentice geisha of Gion
is perhaps the most brilliantly colored primate of all!”
Finally the day came when Mameha and I were to perform the ceremo
ny binding us as sisters. I bathed early and spent the rest of the morning dre
ssing. Auntie helped me with the finishing touches on my makeup and hair. B
ecause of the wax and makeup covering my skin, I had the strange sensation
 of having lost all feeling in my face; every time I touched my cheek, I could
feel only a vague sense of pressure from my finger. I did it so many times
Auntie had to redo my makeup. Afterwards as I studied myself in the mirror,
a most peculiar thing happened. I knew that the person kneeling before the
makeup stand was me, but so was the unfamiliar girl gazing back. I actually r
eached out to touch her. She wore the magnificent makeup of a geisha. Her
lips were flowering red on a stark white face, with her cheeks tinted a soft pi
nk. Her hair was ornamented with silk flowers and sprigs of unhusked rice. Sh
e wore a formal kimono of black, with the crest of the Nitta okiya. When at l
ast I could bring myself to stand, I went into the hall and looked in astonish
ment at myself in the full-length mirror. Beginning at the hem of my gown, a
n embroidered dragon circled up the bottom of the robe to the middle of m
y thigh. His mane was woven in threads lacquered with a beautiful reddish ti
nt. His claws and teeth were silver, his eyes gold--real gold. I couldn’t stop te
ars from welling up in my eyes, and had to look straight up at the ceiling to
keep them from rolling onto my cheeks. Before leaving the okiya, I took the
handkerchief the Chairman had given me and tucked it into my obi for goo
d luck.
Auntie accompanied me to Mameha’s apartment, where I expressed my
gratitude to Mameha and pledged to honor and respect her. Then the three
of us walked to the Gion Shrine, where Mameha and I clapped our hands a
nd announced to the gods that we would soon be bound as sisters. I prayed
for their favor in the years ahead, and then closed my eyes and thanked the
m for having granted me the wish I’d pleaded for three and a half years earli
er, that I should become a geisha.