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Sayo Masuda
The glamorous world of Kyoto’s geisha is familiar to many readers but Sayo Masuda’s tale tells a different story, one that bears little resemblance to the elegant geisha quarters frequented by illustrious patrons. Masuda was a geisha at a rural hot-springs resort where the realities of sex for sale were unadorned by the trappings of wealth and power. Sent to work as a nursemaid at the age of six she was then sold to a geisha house at the age of twelve to learn the geisha arts. When she made her debut as a geisha in 1940 she was sixteen. Although she had barely learnt to write Masuda was determined…
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Sayo Masuda died in 2008. The translator G. G. Rowley teaches English and Japanese literature at Waseda University in Tokyo. She is the author of Yosano Akiko and The Tale of Genji.
topAbout the Book
The glamorous world of Kyoto’s geisha is familiar to many readers but Sayo Masuda’s tale tells a different story, one that bears little resemblance to the elegant geisha quarters frequented by illustrious patrons. Masuda was a geisha at a rural hot-springs resort where the realities of sex for sale were unadorned by the trappings of wealth and power. Sent to work as a nursemaid at the age of six she was then sold to a geisha house at the age of twelve to learn the geisha arts. When she made her debut as a geisha in 1940 she was sixteen. Although she had barely learnt to write Masuda was determined to set down her story, motivated by the desire to tell the truth about life as a geisha and explode the myths surrounding their secret world. Remarkably frank and incredibly moving, this is the record of one woman’s survival on the margins of Japanese society
topSayo Masuda interview/review
Review from The Observer, Sunday March 21, 2004
While Arthur Golden’s 1997 bestseller Memoirs of a Geisha made fiction out of the legendarily glamorous world of Kyoto’s geisha, here we get genuine autobiography, and no glamour at all. In 1936 Sayo Masuda was sold to a geisha house at a rural hot-springs resort. She was 12 years old, and her mother, desperately poor and with four other children, received 30 yen, enough to feed an adult for a whole year. Masuda writes unflinchingly about her demoralising training in the geisha arts, her ‘debut’ aged 16, and all that followed. G. G. Rowley’s translation manages an unpretentious colloquial style, and Masuda’s own self-insight is considerable.
So thoroughly was she immersed in the psychology of the house that only once she was free of it did Masuda ever question what she’d been made to do there. As she says in this typically affecting, understated sentence: “Had it never occurred to me to reflect on my past, then I might have gone through life free of care.”
topStarting Points for Discussion
- “If you have the heart of a human being and you become the parent of a human being, then even if it exhausts every bit of your energy, until that child can walk alone I want you to do your duty as a parent.” Masuda appeals directly to the reader at the end of the first chapter, pleading with them to do their parental duty. Examine other ways in which she stresses the importance of parental responsibility. What other messages do you think Masuda might have been trying to convey to the reader through her autobiography?
- How does Sayo Masuda’s story challenge any previous perceptions you may have had about the geisha world? Would you agree that prior to this autobiography, the geisha profession has been romanticised in literature?
- Examine the author’s experience of love throughout the book. How does her perception of love at the beginning and during her early geisha days differ from her outlook towards the end of the book?
- Consider the way Masuda describes losing her virginity. Does it surprise you that she doesn’t elaborate on this and talk about her feelings at the time? Why do you think the author did not choose to describe the emotions she felt concerning this controversial and previously hidden side of the geisha world?
- Motoyama-san taught Masuda that “misfortune may turn out to be a blessing in disguise”. Discuss this moral with regard to the rest of Masuda’s story.
- This book has been in print in Japan since 1957 and was only published in the UK as a translation in 2004. Were you ever aware of the translator’s voice while reading the book, aside from the notes and the introduction? Do you think these explanations were beneficial to your understanding of the book? In the introduction the translator describes Masuda’s own natural style using the words “breathless, colloquial” and “immediate.” Do you feel that the translator was true to the original style?
Suggested Further Reading
- Geisha ~ Liza Dalby
- Kimono ~ Liza Dalby
- Geisha: The Secret History of a Vanishing World ~ Lesley Downer
- Madame Sadayakko: The Geisha Who Seduced the West ~ Lesley Downer
- Memoirs of a Geisha ~ Arthur Golden
- Geisha, A Life ~ Mineko Iwasaki
- Geisha: A Unique World of Tradition, Elegance and Art ~ John Gallagher