Japanese Bath

This is typical of the Japanese man being given a bath by his wife or even a mistress. Most men had at least one mistress and many had several and all were known by the wife and family. The Japanese way of life was totally unique to Japan and awkward to Americans. Besides being bathed at home, there were "public" baths where lines of people walked down to the bathhouse with a towel and rinsed off under a spigot of running water. There might be 25 people--men, women and children already in the water and all their eyes are on this American with his white skin and short brown hair who seems ashamed and tried to cover himself somewhat until he could get in the water.

Which one is the Buddha?

Me in 1954 in Kamakura, Japan in front of The Great Buddha. A huge bronze figure made with sheets of bronze held together by iron straps on the inside. There is a back door and you could pay a tiny amount and walk inside and look around. I never went inside. I just wish I still had a stomach like this today. But, back in 1954 I never even thought about 2015 or me being alive to experience my 80th birthday – now going to be 82 this coming October 25th.

Memoirs of a Geisha

I finished reading Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden. I should have realized this was not a true story from the day I opened the book. I must have been in a daze when I read the information about the author? I probably just assumed this guy had recorded the information from a living person and put it in book form. Or something? When I finished it I was still hungry for more. How was this lady able to stay in New York City in an expensive apartment; and own a small tea house; and it was then that I realized this was a, "novel" and that I had convinced myself this was a true story. It is a "novel." I never read novels about a woman by a man or the other way around. It would be like reading a novel entitled, "My Life as a Pig" by Mrs. Cow.

So books like Autobiography of a Geisha and Geisha of Gion: The Memoir of Mineko Iwasaki is the real thing and not fiction. What was I thinking?

Which brings me to the point that I have been at parties and watched and listened to Geisha play the Shamisen and the music that comes from it. I was absolutely in awe of these ladies when I was just nineteen years old, 9,000 miles from home, sitting on a straw mat in a tiny room somewhere in the Ginza in Tokyo. I had assumed they were high-class prostitutes but was told nothing could be further from the truth. There are prostitutes that parade around as Geisha and, their Obi tells you, 'I am a prostitute' but I was not aware of these fine points of Japanese dress at that time.

© 2006 Abraham Lincoln - All rights reserved.