HOW GEISHA GIRLS ABE TRAINED.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 172, 20 July 1907, Page 13

HOW GEISHA GIRLS ABE TRAINED.

A SLAYERS LIFE. The Geisha girls of Japan are bought by their masters when they are little children, and their training begins straight away. They must learn to dance, to sing, and play, to be apt in conversation, and to have bewitching manners. MONET GIVEN OTEE TO MASTERS. The training is very rigid. Sometimes? on bitterly cold nights the little girls are sent upon the housetops to sing until it is no longer possible to ma_ke a sound, for the period of hoarseness -which follows imparts a desired timbre to their voices. The hours of their practice are long, and their lessons hard. They mast know many, many dances and games, and the greater the number of their accomplishments, of course, the brighter is their future. When they have learned to play sufficiently well on a musical instrument they are sent out to feasts witii the older geisha, and as they take some little part in the music which, accompanies the dance, they observe, for future nse, the manner of the geisha toward the guests. The money, they receive is given over to their master. He it is wno provides them with their garments, often of indescribable beauty. Only geisha, by virtue of their profession, may wear such elaborate garments, and they heighten the effect by many little tricks of dress, not permissible by other women. tuS~DENIABI,Y FASCINATING. Imagine yourself seated on the floor before a tiny table at a Japanese "ban'arie'tBefore the dancers enter, older geisha, more soberly dressed, take their places upon the floor and play upon stringed instruments and little drums, making sounds that seem weird and unmnsical, yet undeniably fascinating. Are the radiant creatures who follow, in their soft, trailing silks and brilliant obi, with costumes an abandon of richness, girls, or are they women? You do not know, and yon cannot know, for the little girls, under their emiling, childlike faces, conceal the experience of women, and the women are in many ways bjit little children. They are puzzling and bewildering and beautiful—that is all yoa know. Their dance, a series of poses, expresses an idea, or a poem, as our music. The charm of the motion is in the Htt.'e feet in spotless white tabi, in the obedient motion of their silken draperies npon the floor, the fluttering of the long lleeves, the position of the head and tie opening and closing and undulating of a fan, that speaks and lives as a fan fan live and speak only in the hands of a Japanese dancing girl. During the dance the geisha do not smile; afterwards, as they fill your cup and set viands before you they laugh and chatter gaily. Their conversation is full of little personal compliments and solicitude for your comfort. If yon are an American woman in evening dress they pretend to fear greatly lest yon are «»ld. GBATE WHEN THEY DANCE. With deep concern they look tip at yon, touch your gown very lightly and say that it is very beautiful; they wish they might wear gowns like it (you know the while that in their secret sous they think it atrociously ugly); but they axe afraid yen are cold; low delightful it nnist be to wear one's hair dressed so, they continue in Japanese, but with, their straight, black hair they say they would not look welL And ahi yoor necklace! And may they see your rings? Unfortunate, miserable Japanese women who wear no jewellety. When they resume their dance their faces again become quite grave. A Japanese man. In comparing tie American and the Japanese Idea of grace in dancing, suddenly remarked on the gravity of the faces of the Japanese girls during the dance, and asked the reason of one of the older women who played the samisen. Her answer was enlightening. When the geisha are having their lessons, she said, they are strictly enjoined not to smile when dancing; for as they are standing, and the guests seated on the floor, a smile from such an angle might appear somewhat supercilious.