The television programme "Come Dance With Me" had its first debut yesterday. Hosted by Belinda Lee, this programme takes on "various cultures through learning the steps to a magical world of dance". The dance learnt in this programme of a total of 13 episodes ranging from "erotic belly dance, to the energetic samba, to the highly demanding Irish tap dancing where different dances represent different cultures, histories, society and people. These series explore the different cultures through the myriad world of dances." (adapted from mediacorp, channel u website)http://u.mediacorptv.sg/default.aspx
Out of all the dances screened during the advertisement, that of the Japanese appealed to me the most.As seen from the photo below, in order to perform the traditional dance, dancers are to wear the Japanese traditional costume known as the Kimono and they have to doll themselves up. The term given to these dancers is "Geisha (person of the arts) are traditional Japanese artist entertainers". In my opinion, Geisha is a good representation of the Japanese culture as it has been a tradition passed down from generations. The training of a Geisha starts from when they are young. "This culture has been learnt from the 18th to 19th century and is especially common during the American occupation of Japan. Geisha during that time carried connotations of prostitution, as some young women, desperate for money and calling themselves "geisha," sold themselves to American troops."
(adapted from http://www.japaneselifestyle.com.au/culture/geisha.html)
As mentioned earlier that that Geisha has been trained from young, "they are mostly from poor families where they are brought into the home of a master of some art, starting out doing general housework and observing and assisting the master, and eventually moving up to become a master in her own right." This training often lasts for many years and is still practise in Japan. Enough of the background of a Geisha, I personally feel that it is the unique culture of Japan as it is only in Japan that we can find Geisha and therefore, whenever, i come across a picture of a woman with traditional costume (most likely, i would not be able to recognise which country was the costume from), in addition to make up (rather thick though) and with their hair neatly tied up, i tend to perceive that women in Geisha as it is seriously one and only!
Apart from "come dance with me" which illustrates the strictness in the process of being a Geisha, I have once viewed a Taiwan programme where similarly, the host is supposed to challenge the task of learning the dance of a Geisha. In both shows, what I have witnessed is that the costumes that they wear are very tight as I have seen how the hosts of both the shows tried to squeeze in to the clothing and without fail, they tend to make the screaming sound "ah" and often comment that the attire is very tight. From here, one can see that it is rather difficult for one to embrace the culture of another as we will need to unlearn certain feeling and acting in our mind (in this case, it would be our culture of wearing America style of clothing, rather than our traditional costume like Qi Pao for the Chinese)that has been established since we are young. This is mainly because our culture (what we have learn from young) has already been hard wired into our mind thus accepting the culture of another is never and should not be deem an easy job. This could also be the reason why we are supposed to respect the culture of other countries as it is something that is within.
Besides the costume, the training of a Geisha was never seem easy as they are very particular with every step taken. The picture above shows host, Belinda Lee practising the dance and judging from the background, it is undeniable that such culture is graceful and important to the Japanese. However,the identity of Geisha is often discouraging because although it sets out to be an artistic performance, many people including some of the Japanese view them as prostitutes. This could be because occasionally, "a geisha may choose to take a danna (an old fashioned word for husband), which is typically a wealthy man who has the means to support a geisha mistress. Although a geisha may fall in love with her danna, the affair is customarily contingent upon the danna's ability to financially support the geisha's lifestyle. The traditional conventions and values within such a relationship are very intricate and not well understood, even by many Japanese. Because of this, the true intimate role of the geisha remains the object of much speculation, and often misinterpretation, in Japan as well as abroad."
Thus, it seems that though cultures have their own defining terms, there are bound to be misinterpretation if the understanding of that particular culture is not strong.
certain phrasing are adapted from:
http://www.japaneselifestyle.com.au/culture/geisha.html (based on wikipedia article)
