Lifting the lid on the lives of Maiko geisha

WILL YEOMAN takes a look at the traditions depicted in Japan’s new Netflix series

There’s really only one of Kyoto’s tourist attractions you’ll see in Netflix’s charming new series The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House. That’s the famous geisha and entertainment district of Gion.

And there is a reason for that.

Based on Aiko Koyama’s popular manga, The Makanai is a bildungsroman (a story focusing on the protagonists’ formative years) of sorts, following 16­yearold besties Kiyo and Sumire as they negotiate the arcane, claustrophobic world of the maiko and geiko house, or okiya.

As such, almost all the action takes place inside, with nods to the changing seasons and occasional expeditions to shrines, temples, shops, bars and restaurants.

That being said, there is an exceptionally beautiful scene filmed at night on the river, where Sumire performs her debut mai (dance) as a trainee maiko (itself an apprentice geisha).

I also enjoy the show’s regular scenes in the bar attached to the house. Their quirky poignancy is reminiscent of those in the hit Japanese TV series, also based on a manga, Midnight Diner.

But for the most part, this is about young women, and their “sisters” and “mother (okiya­san)” as they live, train, play and grow up together in the one house.

It’s funny, gentle, intimate and humane — and offers an extraordinary insight into the daily lives of maiko and geiko

(geisha). This is what you’d expect from Hirokazu Kore­eda, the Palme d’Or winning creator of the film Shoplifters.

He is producer, co­writer and co­director of The Makanai.

Oh, and since Kiyo realises her true calling is cooking, and she becomes the house’s makanai, or cook, the series is filled with scenes involving the preparation and consumption of deliciouslooking makanai (the same word is used for the dishes and the person who makes them).

Some years ago, I was fortunate to get a glimpse of this world myself when, escaping the hordes of shoppers and tourists, I slipped across the Takase River to Gion’s old­world charm of narrow lanes flanked by elegant dark­timbered

Produced by the Travel team: Will Yeoman Mogens Johansen Penny Thomas Leyanne Baillie machiya, or townhouses. Then, I was fortunate to have Junko Ogawa as my guide: her grandmother was a geisha.

I asked Junko what a geiko was.

“Geisha is a general term meaning ‘art person’,” she said. “Individually they prefer geiko, which means ‘art master’. A maiko is a trainee geisha. Both are professional entertainers.

“They dance, they sing, they play musical instruments.

“You can also hire them as a companion, and take them to lunch or dinner.”

However, you have to be a member of the particular tea house the geiko and maiko work at. Not just anybody can come off the street and book one. But how does a girl become a geisha in the first place? It seems the application process has kept pace with the times.

“With my grandmother’s generation, girls younger than 10 were sold to geisha houses because of poverty,” Junko said.

“They would be trained to become a geisha while working as a servant.”

When our conversation took place, there were only 200 geiko and maiko in Kyoto. There are probably even fewer now.

“Most come from outside Kyoto,” Junko told me. “And they apply online. Girls aged 15­16 send an application through to a registry office. The office will make a call­out to the boarding houses where the meiko live while they train. Then the boarding house mother will come and look at the resumes.”

Having now watched The Makanai, this dance between the old and the new world makes more sense. The girls are not allowed to use mobile phones, but they occasionally eat at McDonald’s.

The house mother has a teenage daughter who is sullen and depressive and who provides a wry commentary to the seemingly somewhat carefree lives of the maiko and geiko.

One geiko has an unhealthy obsession with zombie films.

In other words, these apparently otherworldly women are just like us.

The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House is currently streaming on Netflix.