Episode 303 - The History of the Geisha

History of Japan

Isaac Meyer

Japan, History, Japanese

4.8 • 744 Ratings

🗓️ 30 August 2019

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Finally, a long overdue look at one of the most romanticized and exocitized parts of traditional Japanese culture. What are geisha? Where do they come from? Aren't they basically fancy prostitutes? And haven't I learned everything I need to know about them from reading Memoirs of a Geisha?

Transcript

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0:00.0	This week's episode is brought to you by Audible.
0:03.3	Audible has over 425,000 of titles to choose from, all compatible with iPhone, Android,
0:10.3	Kindle, or your MP3 player of choice.
0:13.7	For listeners of the show, Audible is offering a free 30-day trial membership, complete with
0:18.1	credit for a free audiobook of your choice.
0:22.3	You can cancel any time and keep the free book or keep going with one of Audible subscription offers. Go to audibletrial.com
0:28.2	slash Japan to claim your offer. This week I'm going to recommend all systems read by Martha Wells.
0:36.1	It's a really interesting short novella about, well, the ethics of murderous robots,
0:43.1	but also it's funny and really intriguing, and frankly, you should just check it out.
0:47.4	If you like anything from Westworld to Ex Machina, I think you really like this.
0:53.5	Go to audible trial.com slash Japan to claim yourina. I think you really like this. Go to AudibleTrial.com slash Japan to claim your copy.
0:57.0	Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast.
1:16.4	Episode 303, The History of the Gatia.
1:21.2	So I think this might be the most requested topic I've ever gotten on the podcast and with good reason. It's something
1:29.7	a lot of people have heard a lot about. It has also been a topic I've resisted doing for a long
1:36.3	time, for two simple reasons. First, it's poorly documented, and second, few historical
1:43.4	phenomena are more exoticized. Ninja, samurai,
1:48.1	Sapuku, Bushido, all of these things have been fed through a really weird ringer
1:52.8	over the course of their translations into the Western imagination. But in that regard,
1:58.6	none of them hold a candle to the idea of the geisha.
2:02.6	So we're going to start off with a bit of history about where this idea even comes from.
2:08.6	Astonishingly enough, the geisha, one of the most quintessentially Japanese of concepts, have their origins, where else, but China.
	...

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