Latest / POST-WHATEVER with Ken Nishikawa
So, What the Hell Is a Geisha, Anyway?
My mother is a geisha. She's spent a lifetime being magnificently misunderstood, and this week, so am I, as I attempt to explain her profession to an audience that mostly learned about the subject from a Hollywood film starring an American actress playing Japanese.
Geisha are not prostitutes (I have absolutely nothing against prostitution. I am merely trying to tell it as it is). They never were, not officially, and the distinction — while genuinely fascinating — has been getting lost in translation for about 150 years. This episode sets the record straight: what geisha actually are, where…
The skinny
The skinny isn't ready yet — notes appear once the transcript is processed.