Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm stared Out, and today we're
Speaker 1: talking about a topic that's kind of near and dear
Speaker 1: to my heart and probably near and dear to the
Speaker 1: heart of anybody who has ever studied Geisha or even
Speaker 1: Reni Japanese culture, because it comes up a lot. I
Speaker 1: first learned about this story in Jody Cobb's book about Geisha,
Speaker 1: and Jody Cobb is a woman who was the only Westerner,
Speaker 1: to the best of my knowledge, to ever be fully
Speaker 1: indoctrinated into Geisha culture. And because in the West we
Speaker 1: often equate geisha, we think of them as like sort
Speaker 1: of high class call girls, but that's not really accurate
Speaker 1: at all. They're really artists, kind of like Mr misperceptions
Speaker 1: about the Ottoman Harem on those right, Like they were
Speaker 1: really um women of great culture and really artists in
Speaker 1: their own right and performers um And it was not
Speaker 1: completely void of a sexual element, but that really wasn't
Speaker 1: what that culture is about. And so that book really
Speaker 1: opened the eyes, i think, to a lot of Westerners
Speaker 1: about it, and also to the story of Okichi, who
Speaker 1: is really one of these sort of great tragic figures
Speaker 1: of Geisha culture. And when you told me what you
Speaker 1: were thinking of researching I it didn't ring a bell.
Speaker 1: But once I started reading about her story, I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: of course I've heard this before. And part of that
Speaker 1: is just because it has a strong fairy tale element
Speaker 1: to it, except in the worst possible way. You know,
Speaker 1: a tragic tragic story. Um, but it will probably be
Speaker 1: familiar to a lot of listeners even if the name
Speaker 1: isn't familiar right away. Yes, well, and even if the
Speaker 1: story itself doesn't ring familiar to them, the themes of
Speaker 1: it do, because it really is as you said, it's
Speaker 1: it's like your classic kind of tragic romance story. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of elements that are very common,
Speaker 1: and that's not really accidental, will discover because a lot
Speaker 1: of this is an embellished tale that you know has
Speaker 1: grown in reputation and and the details have been fleshed
Speaker 1: out here and there along the way, and it fellished
Speaker 1: for romance and become another thing than it probably was.
Speaker 1: It has, so we're gonna sort of do a classic
Speaker 1: stuff he missed in history class, take on it. Then
Speaker 1: and examine that story, the story that you're likely to hear,
Speaker 1: the legend, the legend, and then what historical basis there
Speaker 1: really is for it, right, the sort of less exciting
Speaker 1: and thrilling but still interest you know, the tale um
Speaker 1: to see how it how it changes in interpretation every year.
Speaker 1: So for quick background, Okichi was born in December eighty
Speaker 1: one in Shimoda, Japan. Her parents, the psychos, were ichibay
Speaker 1: and his wife Marco, and they were fishermen. I mean
Speaker 1: they were in a fishing village. Shimota is the southernmost
Speaker 1: port city on the Easy Peninsula, so this was a
Speaker 1: time when Japan was not open to the outside world
Speaker 1: and that plays into this story pretty dramatically. But according
Speaker 1: to the legend, which is how we're gonna kick it off,
Speaker 1: Okeechi was incredibly beautiful and was sold into a geisha
Speaker 1: house when she was twelve years old. And um, I
Speaker 1: guess if you've read this, this book about sort of
Speaker 1: the history of geisha, is that a normal age to
Speaker 1: be entering the geisha house? Yes, I mean, and and
Speaker 1: when we say she was sold into the geisha house,
Speaker 1: that in and of itself has some connotations that sound
Speaker 1: really bad. But for a lot of these families, having
Speaker 1: a daughter that couldn't contribute to the work of the
Speaker 1: day to day like needs of a fishing family, they
Speaker 1: couldn't afford to keep those children and raise them well
Speaker 1: and give them the things that they felt that they needed.
Speaker 1: So it was really, in many impoverished family's eyes, a
Speaker 1: better thing to be, like, go to this life of opulence,
Speaker 1: where you will be given every she'll become a woman
Speaker 1: of you know, great grace and beauty. Um. So, while
Speaker 1: it sounds really creepy, and it, I mean it is,
Speaker 1: it's unsettling to think that a family would be like,
Speaker 1: we're going to give you to these people. Not uncommon.
Speaker 1: And as far as age, I'm trying to remember because
Speaker 1: it has been a little while since I've read that
Speaker 1: whole book through um, but I mean I have heard
Speaker 1: accounts of kids much younger than that, even where it's
Speaker 1: just from the get go they kind of don't even
Speaker 1: have the resources to really get their kids through that
Speaker 1: early formative stage. Well, in the amount of training that
Speaker 1: a gay show would have to go through it too,
Speaker 1: you would start very early if you're learning music and
Speaker 1: dance and things like that that take a lifetime of practice, uh,
Speaker 1: and the bio. There's a biography about Okichi which is
Speaker 1: all referenced in a lot of other literature about her,
Speaker 1: called Butterfly in the Wind, and it's by Ray Knura,
Speaker 1: and it's interesting because it's written very much in the
Speaker 1: style of a novel U, So in terms of historical basis,
Speaker 1: I question it a little bit um And she writes
Speaker 1: a lot uh in a very prose fiction style where
Speaker 1: she talks about the inner feelings and the inner thoughts
Speaker 1: of of the characters of the story, where you know,
Speaker 1: there's really probably no historical um documentation that could lend
Speaker 1: sources to that, but it is a good read and
Speaker 1: it it's fundamentally, you know, kind of a um, a
Speaker 1: really fleshed out, in depth version of the o'keechee legend
Speaker 1: that gets told over and over. So keep that in
Speaker 1: mind as we go forward. As we mentioned earlier, we're
Speaker 1: in the according to legends, And if you go off
Speaker 1: to to do more research on this yourself too, and
Speaker 1: you pick up the book and think, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: a historical novel, Yeah, it definitely does not read as
Speaker 1: a textbook, so it really is kind of a novelization
Speaker 1: of the story uh, And in this book we're told
Speaker 1: of Okichi meeting even though she is in uh in
Speaker 1: the geisha culture at this point, she meets a man
Speaker 1: Sudu Matsu. In the aftermath of a storm that hits Shimodin,
Speaker 1: a lot of people had to evacuate, and she meets
Speaker 1: him during that evacuation. City kind of get out of
Speaker 1: the cloistered geisha training environment thanks to this story. Well,
Speaker 1: and at that point she was already working as a geisha.
Speaker 1: I can't I'm trying to remember if she was still
Speaker 1: in the apprentice stage where she was working alongside another
Speaker 1: or she had already ascended to be in her own
Speaker 1: right fully fledged geisha. But uh, you know, in kim
Speaker 1: what I was telling of the story, ok is troubled
Speaker 1: because the opulence of the geisha world and this sort
Speaker 1: of indulgence of it is very unsettling to her. She
Speaker 1: sees it as, you know, not really how a person,
Speaker 1: how a person should live, and she really dreams of
Speaker 1: like a simpler life. She wants to be a wife
Speaker 1: and a mother. And so when she meets Sudu Matsu,
Speaker 1: who is very kind to her and unlike the gentleman
Speaker 1: that she's been entertaining. He doesn't want anything from her.
Speaker 1: He's not you know, she's not paid to make him
Speaker 1: make conversation with him. He just wants to be with
Speaker 1: her and care for her, and he doesn't care that
Speaker 1: she had been a geisha. So she thinks all her
Speaker 1: dreams are about to come true. Okay, though, we know
Speaker 1: that I'm not gonna get down quite exactly as you
Speaker 1: might think, because in eighteen fifty three, Commodore Matthew Perry
Speaker 1: of the U. S. Navy first landed in Japan, and
Speaker 1: by eighteen fifty four he had sailed to Okeeche's hometown,
Speaker 1: Shimoda Harbor, with a varying number of chefs depending on
Speaker 1: the account you read, which just pretty startling because that's
Speaker 1: like a historically significant event. I mean, it's huge. But
Speaker 1: even so, in different historical texts that are cited by
Speaker 1: their texts, different numbers of the ships he brought, I
Speaker 1: mean they change up in four four, and some it's
Speaker 1: evan and some it's nine. But the most important part
Speaker 1: is not the number of ships, but what he was
Speaker 1: there to accomplish and to demand. Really, he demanded that
Speaker 1: Japan established trade in diplomatic relationships with the US, because,
Speaker 1: as you had mentioned earlier, Japan was a closed society
Speaker 1: and had been where its history. Uh So this was
Speaker 1: a that's a huge shift in in in world history really,
Speaker 1: but also pretty important in Okichi's life. Yes. Uh. Now,
Speaker 1: in some tellings of the story, the dates get real floppy. Um.
Speaker 1: And some tellings of the story, Okeichee was seen by
Speaker 1: Townsend Harris, who became the U. S. Consul in eighteen
Speaker 1: fifties six. And so already there's something dicey there because
Speaker 1: that's after these these treaties were being discussed. Remember this part,
Speaker 1: this is going to be the first thing we get into,
Speaker 1: and we're getting into some legend debunking. Yeah. So there
Speaker 1: is one version of the story where towns and Harris
Speaker 1: sees her when she's seventeen. She's leaving a bathhouse with
Speaker 1: a friend of hers, uh, and he thinks she's quite lovely.
Speaker 1: She doesn't interact with him during that, But then later
Speaker 1: on people come into her life and say, by the way,
Speaker 1: we need you because this gentleman thinks you're beautiful and
Speaker 1: if we can give you to him, it might grease
Speaker 1: the wheels of this whole negotiation process. I mean things
Speaker 1: go a lot smoother for us because they were not
Speaker 1: going well at all. Um. Other accounts though, have Okachee
Speaker 1: not being seen at the bath house. All. Um, she
Speaker 1: was chosen by government officials because exactly she'd be a
Speaker 1: good candidate. I'm sure he'll like her. Um. So in
Speaker 1: some versions too, they offer up something for her taking
Speaker 1: on this role, and that is a job for her beloved,
Speaker 1: who was just a ship's carpenter, you know, a very
Speaker 1: simple sort of working man. Um. They offered to make
Speaker 1: him a samurai, high profile, high class position. Other accounts, though,
Speaker 1: say that he was just moved out of the way,
Speaker 1: especially it was given a job in another town. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a here as a reward if you do this,
Speaker 1: it's just getting him out of the way. And um
Speaker 1: that's because depending again on accounts, they might have been engaged,
Speaker 1: they might have even been married. He was. Accounts differs.
Speaker 1: Some say they were already married, some say they were engaged,
Speaker 1: some just say they were in love. But he seems
Speaker 1: like a man who needed to be removed from the
Speaker 1: equation to make it all easier. Um. And in some
Speaker 1: cases that's told as though it was offered up as
Speaker 1: a negotiation tactic with Okichi and Sudu Matsu, like, we
Speaker 1: will make your lives easier financially if we can give
Speaker 1: Okichi to this foreigner, and in others it's much harsher,
Speaker 1: and they just kind of gave her to the and
Speaker 1: they just kind of pushed him off into something else. Yeah, So, however,
Speaker 1: that ended up going down. Treaties were signed in Shimoda
Speaker 1: in June of eighteen fifty four. The two signers in
Speaker 1: question where Commodore Matthew Perry for the U S and
Speaker 1: Degaku Hayashi for the Shogunate. And the agreements did have
Speaker 1: a major effect, as we keep saying on on world history.
Speaker 1: They opened up Japan to international trade. So it seems
Speaker 1: from our legend at least that maybe Okeechee got the
Speaker 1: job done. Yeah, but even the job that she was
Speaker 1: given is a little bit in question. Um. And also,
Speaker 1: you know, so as a little brief sidebar, four months later,
Speaker 1: I believe after um Matthew Perry had wrapped up his
Speaker 1: business there there were Russian ships that also came so
Speaker 1: right around the same time. It's not especially impactful in
Speaker 1: this story, but it's interesting because it does kind of
Speaker 1: point out how it started to Domino very rapidly that
Speaker 1: Japan opened up to the US trades, and then there
Speaker 1: was a Russian consulate almost immediately after that that opened
Speaker 1: as well. So it was such a hugely shifting time
Speaker 1: for Japan. I mean immediately after having been a close country.
Speaker 1: Within five months they were trading regularly with two other countries,
Speaker 1: already major countries. Um so Oguchi, though, did live with Harris, who,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned, went on to become the U s
Speaker 1: consul uh for a time. Again, depending on the story,
Speaker 1: three years, three days, the number three seems to be
Speaker 1: important for pretty pretty vast different, pretty big difference for
Speaker 1: how long you live with somebody um and then all
Speaker 1: sorts of versions of the legend of what she did
Speaker 1: while she lived with him, whether she was some sort
Speaker 1: of assassin. This is a dramatic movie version of the
Speaker 1: tales to kill him undercover gaish i guess, but ends
Speaker 1: up being loyal to him, ends up saving his life.
Speaker 1: In other versions, she's sent to Harris by the shogunate
Speaker 1: as a spy, so not somebody to to ease this
Speaker 1: um this treaty negotiation at all, but to to see
Speaker 1: what the US representatives were up to yeah, And there's
Speaker 1: a great deal of debate and discrepancy and accounts of
Speaker 1: whether or not their relationship was consummated. Um. She has
Speaker 1: been described as his lover, as his housekeeper, as his nurse. Um.
Speaker 1: There are people that believe that she served until the
Speaker 1: American Consulate closed as like the local mistress for the consulate.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's all very It goes from everything from
Speaker 1: a like a chaste caring nurse to a prostitute basically
Speaker 1: consulate prostitute, and every version in between, you know, embellish
Speaker 1: at will apparently is how that one went. Whichever version
Speaker 1: you like the best is the one you tell any
Speaker 1: it is. It's a very much choose your own ending
Speaker 1: story because it just gets um even more out there
Speaker 1: too as it goes on. After Harris left Japan, Okihi
Speaker 1: was left behind. And this is sort of the central
Speaker 1: focus of the legend, that being left and then being
Speaker 1: a shunned woman somebody who was called tjan okichi um
Speaker 1: so the mistress of a foreigner, the mistress of a barbarian,
Speaker 1: a derogatory name for her um. And she was basically ruined,
Speaker 1: ye ruined from from this association, whatever it might have
Speaker 1: been with this foreigner and the stress of being shunned
Speaker 1: by her the people she knew her her hometown led
Speaker 1: to a drinking habit which got very serious. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: obviously her career too, as a successful geishaw was was
Speaker 1: not going to I couldn't really just spark that back
Speaker 1: up because she really, I mean, no one would pay
Speaker 1: for her to come and be an entertainer at their
Speaker 1: party because she was you know, kind of considered trash
Speaker 1: at that point. Unfortunately, so she you know, had to
Speaker 1: look for other work eventually, and some reports and the
Speaker 1: book we mentioned to tell a story of trying to
Speaker 1: start up hair saloon business. You know, geisha of course
Speaker 1: have the elaborate hairstyles which signify all sorts of things
Speaker 1: about about them too. I think Molly and Kristen did
Speaker 1: an episode on that some time ago and step Mom
Speaker 1: never told you. But that didn't go as planned. No,
Speaker 1: it turned out that the you know, the society women
Speaker 1: that she was hoping to draw with her knowledge were
Speaker 1: not the ones that wanted to go there because she
Speaker 1: was again still seen in a dark light, and so
Speaker 1: her clientele tended to be women of ill repute, the
Speaker 1: high class women in the town didn't want to be
Speaker 1: seen and they didn't want to associate with her, which
Speaker 1: is really really sad. But in the meantime you have
Speaker 1: to wonder what happened to her love and some stories
Speaker 1: never mentioned him again. They just kind of jumped to
Speaker 1: how okeeche story ends. But in others, and this happens
Speaker 1: in the book, they are reunited for a time Um,
Speaker 1: but it's a very conflicted relationship. Initially when she meets
Speaker 1: him again, she almost doesn't want to be with him,
Speaker 1: like she can't quite wrap her mind around it. But
Speaker 1: then they do strike up this relationship, but she's conflicted
Speaker 1: consistently about dragging Sudumatsu and his business. He was a
Speaker 1: very popular carpenter down with her disgrace, and it's very dramatic,
Speaker 1: and it's told in various versions. There are various levels
Speaker 1: of drama, but there is lots of drunkenness. There are
Speaker 1: fights where they talk about her having hung onto the
Speaker 1: fact that he left in the first place when the
Speaker 1: whole deal with the console was going on Um, and
Speaker 1: you know, it was really on a trajectory that could
Speaker 1: never get to a positive place again. They both start
Speaker 1: to develop pretty heavy alcoholism issues and Eventually, uh Todumatsu's
Speaker 1: best friend convinces her that if she really loves him,
Speaker 1: she has to leave him because he's not getting business
Speaker 1: anymore because people don't want to be associated with her,
Speaker 1: even peripherally through him. But his time is short anyway.
Speaker 1: He dies a year later of a heart attack, and
Speaker 1: o'kechi lived in Kyoto and Mishima for a time, um
Speaker 1: possibly working as some sort of geisha in the darkest
Speaker 1: versions of the story, as a prostitute. Um and then
Speaker 1: finally did return to Shimoda, where she opened up a
Speaker 1: restaurant she called it and show Koro, but it didn't
Speaker 1: do well, lost money due to poor management. Um o'keechee
Speaker 1: was not in a state to run a business. Intoxicated
Speaker 1: a lot of the time, employees apparently stole from her.
Speaker 1: There's one story of an employee that is fairly conscientious
Speaker 1: trying to tell her like, people are stealing, don't you care,
Speaker 1: And she's just kind of too drink to care. And
Speaker 1: so it turns that employee where they're like, if she
Speaker 1: doesn't care, I'm just gonna start stealing from the till
Speaker 1: as well. Uh So you can see where that's not
Speaker 1: really a good way to run a business. No. But
Speaker 1: eventually though, there was kind of a change in sentiment
Speaker 1: about her. Maybe we've been too harsh, maybe she has
Speaker 1: been misjudged. But she was in debt by that point,
Speaker 1: despairing of how her life turned out, and it didn't
Speaker 1: do much to help her at that point. So she
Speaker 1: died by suicide in eighteen ninety two at the age
Speaker 1: of fifty one, by drowning herself near Shimoda. Uh. In
Speaker 1: the book too, it's on March, which is right. There's
Speaker 1: actually a strange day which you talk about a little
Speaker 1: bit more, and it's on a different day, um And
Speaker 1: the day in the book March, which is when the
Speaker 1: festival actually happens in real life today um and is
Speaker 1: touted as the day she died. In the book, that's
Speaker 1: actually the day that a local priest took pity on
Speaker 1: her because no one claimed her body initially, and after
Speaker 1: two days he just couldn't take it, and he claimed
Speaker 1: her and and found a place for her in his
Speaker 1: temple to be buried. Uh. And that's the legend, which
Speaker 1: is horribly sad, that's our legend. So she's dead at
Speaker 1: fifty one, this tragic life living with the American Consulate
Speaker 1: for our console for some number three days and having
Speaker 1: her life spiral downward in consequence. But according to historians,
Speaker 1: a lot of the details of that story are not
Speaker 1: true at all, and I'm sure that's apparent just from
Speaker 1: the discrepancy. Did she open these businesses, but we know
Speaker 1: one of the businesses really arrested because the restaurant is
Speaker 1: still there. Um. And then the very bland version that
Speaker 1: comes up among historians is that o'kechee and another young
Speaker 1: woman were housekeepers for hers for a very short time,
Speaker 1: and her downwards by rolling life was not really unrelated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, there could have been a shadow cast on
Speaker 1: her reputation by things, but that it was not nearly
Speaker 1: as dramatic as as what's often told in her story. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the major discrepancy though, and we told you to
Speaker 1: remember this part, it has to do with the timeline
Speaker 1: and the treaties, because according to the legend, Okeechee is
Speaker 1: clearly offered up as some sort of treaty bonus work
Speaker 1: out the treaty with the help of this young lady
Speaker 1: where was a talented geisha. But she's always only linked
Speaker 1: to towns in Harris and he actually did not get
Speaker 1: to Japan until eighteen fifty six, so he wasn't even
Speaker 1: there when that treaty was happening. He did work on
Speaker 1: other treaties that came up along the way, as you know,
Speaker 1: shifting politics and trade needs were addressed. Was just actually
Speaker 1: called the Harris Treaty of eighteen fifty eight, much later
Speaker 1: after Uh, this whole story was unfolding, and it's also
Speaker 1: called the Treaty of Amity and Commerce. But he could
Speaker 1: not have been offered okichi to make those initial talks go. Well, Um,
Speaker 1: he wasn't in Japan. He wasn't there yet, he was
Speaker 1: doing other things. Um. More discrepancies on the nature of
Speaker 1: the relationship in the timeline. Um, Harris was he was
Speaker 1: the first foreigner that lived on Japanese soil. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned earlier, there's a one source that says
Speaker 1: she was only there for three days and not even
Speaker 1: until May of eighteen fifties seven. So again, nowhere near
Speaker 1: when he was when the treaties were happening when he
Speaker 1: first got there. Um. And then this one kind of
Speaker 1: corrects my favorite you should read them, Okay. So we
Speaker 1: told you that one possibility was that Opeechee served as
Speaker 1: a nurse to Harris. That was the extent of their relationship.
Speaker 1: There is a large monument in front of the main
Speaker 1: building of the temple commemorating the beginning of cow milk
Speaker 1: being consumed in Japan, and Harris supposedly was a big
Speaker 1: milk fan. He drank a lot of milk because he
Speaker 1: had ulcers and it helped with them, and it kind of,
Speaker 1: in a sort of roundabout way, kind of supports the
Speaker 1: nurse story, supports maybe he was a guy who needed
Speaker 1: a nurse. And in the sort of novelized history of
Speaker 1: her life they do there are instances where she is
Speaker 1: asked to go get more milk because they almost can't
Speaker 1: keep up with his need for milk. And she doesn't
Speaker 1: really want to go out because the villagers don't like
Speaker 1: her and they've already started to shun her, and but
Speaker 1: she has to get milk for him, and it's it's
Speaker 1: very dramatic stuff. Um, but yeah, I mean, all of
Speaker 1: those embellishments were really developed, likely through gossip and rumor.
Speaker 1: I mean, we know you don't have to be in
Speaker 1: eighteen fifties Japan to love gossip. There are lots of
Speaker 1: stories that happen in modern era just grow so outlandish
Speaker 1: and bizarre that they couldn't possibly be true, but people
Speaker 1: believe them. An okeechie story even though it, you know,
Speaker 1: is in large part chunks of it are not true.
Speaker 1: We're pretty sure. Um it's very very popular and it's
Speaker 1: actually become a big thing in Shimoda. It's memorialized throughout
Speaker 1: the city. Yeah, merchants so okeech souvenirs to tourists. There
Speaker 1: are tourist attractions built around her story. UM hopeful Kuji,
Speaker 1: which is the the temple where she was taken after
Speaker 1: she had passed and buried. Um. It's the sixteenth century
Speaker 1: temple and as we said, no one had claimed the body,
Speaker 1: and a priest that knew her family took pity on
Speaker 1: her and arrange for her to be buried there. And
Speaker 1: there's also a museum there of her possessions like combs
Speaker 1: and some of her musical instruments from when she was
Speaker 1: a geisha. Um. But the weirdest part to me is
Speaker 1: that her legend, and I was unable to find out
Speaker 1: what version of the legend which was, but her legend
Speaker 1: is relaid on a loudspeaker in both English and Japanese
Speaker 1: for tourists, because I mean, clearly the legend loses a
Speaker 1: little of its um loudspeaker appeal. If you if you're saying, well, okay,
Speaker 1: she's sort of the say, you know, the guy might
Speaker 1: have had ulcer. She was just delivering milk. Um. It's
Speaker 1: a strange thing to consider. I guess if anybody has
Speaker 1: visited this site, we would love to hear more about
Speaker 1: what specifically is relayed over the loud speaker, what version
Speaker 1: of the legend, but the most touching part of the story,
Speaker 1: because I think that we can we can assume that
Speaker 1: this part is true. Her beloved is buried with her there, Yes,
Speaker 1: and again I have seen pictures. I haven't been, but
Speaker 1: I have seen pictures of their two sites and they
Speaker 1: are side by side. There's really no verification in any
Speaker 1: sources that I found that yes, he is actually there,
Speaker 1: or if it was just a monument erected um the
Speaker 1: idea is lovely regardless. Uh. And then her restaurant is
Speaker 1: also a tourist destination. Now Antokuro is um still a
Speaker 1: restaurant on the first floor, but part of the second floor,
Speaker 1: like one room, is dedicated as an Okichi museum. There
Speaker 1: are also a lot of other Okichi items on display
Speaker 1: at gail Kasenji, which is a Buddhist temple that became
Speaker 1: the American consulate in eighteen fifty six, and Harris lived
Speaker 1: in the temple for a year to making it a
Speaker 1: pretty part of the story. Where the American Consulate in
Speaker 1: Japan began was in that temple. Yeah, so the temple
Speaker 1: displays pipes and dish is and other belongings of Harris's
Speaker 1: as well as life size figurines of Harris and Okechi.
Speaker 1: And this was another one where if you have been there,
Speaker 1: we would like to have more information about well. And
Speaker 1: there is a Time article about it where they describe
Speaker 1: them as kind of ghastly, like it's a really creepy thing,
Speaker 1: But again that's through one person's eyes. Other people may
Speaker 1: find them very touching and romantic seeing them in person.
Speaker 1: Almost the nicest part of this story, I think, although
Speaker 1: again the date is a little strange if if this
Speaker 1: is the day they choose to commemorate, but um Okeichi
Speaker 1: is honored every year with the festival on March, which
Speaker 1: is either the anniversary of her death or the anniversary
Speaker 1: that the priest claimed her body and took her back
Speaker 1: to the temple. Yeah, so people do remember this woman,
Speaker 1: and she's kind of become a symbol of how, you know,
Speaker 1: people can be victimized by the chain Jing winds of culture,
Speaker 1: a symbol of that of that time. Yeah. Sure. Um.
Speaker 1: The there's also some film adamation. There's well, there's one
Speaker 1: called Tojino Kichi, which it was very old. I believe
Speaker 1: it was made in the nineteen thirties, and there's only
Speaker 1: like four minutes of surviving footage, which is like a
Speaker 1: brief dance section, so it doesn't really tell much of
Speaker 1: the story. It's literally almost watching a documentary of a
Speaker 1: geiship performing. But there was another movie called The Barbarian
Speaker 1: and the Geisha and it's actually starring John Wayne and
Speaker 1: a Japanese actress named i go Ando, and it was
Speaker 1: filmed on location in Japan, which was a big deal
Speaker 1: when the movie came out, And it's directed by John Houston,
Speaker 1: who already had established a pretty um spectacular career at
Speaker 1: that point. I've got to this movie now. It's interesting.
Speaker 1: It's very very interesting because like if you look at
Speaker 1: the Rotten Tomatoes score, it's only like I think it's
Speaker 1: fi um. But then if you look at it in
Speaker 1: iTunes in the movie store, like there's a lot of
Speaker 1: really good reviews of it, where some people are like,
Speaker 1: I think this is the great unsung role of John
Speaker 1: Wayne's career, but other critics will be like this was
Speaker 1: the biggest misstep of both John Wayne and John Houston.
Speaker 1: Like it was just it did not go over well
Speaker 1: even though it was beautiful because it was um and
Speaker 1: they really did do some at that point in the
Speaker 1: fifties too, which you didn't really bring a whole crew
Speaker 1: out to another country at that point. Yeah, well, I
Speaker 1: want to see it all the more. But I mean
Speaker 1: I couldn't help thinking just for John Wayne in his
Speaker 1: little his robes, it's like it's worth it. I couldn't
Speaker 1: help it think though that it's maybe time for another
Speaker 1: adaptation of this. Yeah, it's such a compelling story. It
Speaker 1: does seem so suitable for fiction. I mean, maybe that's
Speaker 1: why the historical accounts of it seemed to be tinged
Speaker 1: pretty strongly with with fictional elements. Um, it's one of
Speaker 1: those stories where the historical basis is great and it's
Speaker 1: a good kickoff point, but maybe more could happen with
Speaker 1: it and give me a serious. Well, I kind of
Speaker 1: love the idea of the gaisou spy well, and she isn't.
Speaker 1: In the movie. She is sent as an assassin and
Speaker 1: kind of moves into a spine roll before she becomes
Speaker 1: they become very fond of each other and fall in love,
Speaker 1: and it's very dramatic and you know, really kills him
Speaker 1: to leave her behind, and it's so I guess I'm
Speaker 1: basically requesting a spy movie, but also also a tragic
Speaker 1: realmance too. I mean yeah, And because there is so
Speaker 1: little actual documentation, it's so easy for this to be
Speaker 1: even further embellished, have at it. Filmmakers go crazy, go crazy.
Speaker 1: So while sad, I think it is lovely that she has,
Speaker 1: you know, been redeemed in history. Again, we don't know
Speaker 1: the value of the actuality of what happened, but as
Speaker 1: a symbol, she's really become very important to kind of
Speaker 1: recognize them just the ways in which people's lives are
Speaker 1: genuinely affected by current events. And you know, when people
Speaker 1: become pawns, it destroys lives. So it's good to have
Speaker 1: that remembrance and have her honored in in the way
Speaker 1: that she is now At the festival. So sad story,
Speaker 1: but with sort of a happy coda to it. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'd say, so, um, it's it's always good to have
Speaker 1: a festival day. Do you have to have a tragic life?
Speaker 1: At least you get a festival after festival in the
Speaker 1: long run, and maybe another movie. Okay, So moving on
Speaker 1: to listener mail today, I thought I would include some
Speaker 1: real mail. Postcard. It is from Renata in Omaha, and
Speaker 1: she wrote to say, ladies, I took my grand tour
Speaker 1: of Europe before your podcast started, so now that I've
Speaker 1: finally gone somewhere interesting again, I didn't want to miss
Speaker 1: my opportunity to send you mail. I'm on a week
Speaker 1: long trip to China for college, and I've been learning
Speaker 1: a ton about the Dragon Lady. If you visit the
Speaker 1: Forbidden City, you can see her summer palace, which is amazing.
Speaker 1: I would definitely recommend a warmer month because Nato was
Speaker 1: there in January and apparently found it rather chilly. But
Speaker 1: that's really cool. The Dragon Lady was such a fun
Speaker 1: episode to to talk about and I love it. As
Speaker 1: I always say, when people are inspired to take trips
Speaker 1: based on the podcast and Forbidden Cities on my boocket
Speaker 1: list and now they have a Starbucks. So I'm covering,
Speaker 1: really get to go. That was the one thing that
Speaker 1: was holding you back. I have to mention too, since
Speaker 1: you guys know, um, I like the stance, the international
Speaker 1: stance that we get on the postcard. This one has
Speaker 1: the cool This one, it's a good stamp. It's crackodiles,
Speaker 1: I mean kind of alligators cuddling. They are kind of cuddling.
Speaker 1: There's like a little or alligator who's resting his chin
Speaker 1: in a sleepy way on the other alligator's back who's
Speaker 1: smiling at the reader. It's quite dear. So thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you for choosing such a good stamp on a
Speaker 1: beautiful postcard and a lovely postcard. And I'm glad you
Speaker 1: had fun. So if you would like to learn more
Speaker 1: about the topic we've talked about today, you can go
Speaker 1: to our website. Type in the word Geisha in the
Speaker 1: search bar and you will get the article how Geisha work. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you would like to contact us, you can do
Speaker 1: so via Twitter. Yeah, on Twitter, and we're also on Facebook,
Speaker 1: and we are at History Podcasts at Discovery dot com.
Speaker 1: For email and uh yeah, we'll be getting an email soon.
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. And if you want
Speaker 1: to research almost anything else you can think of, you
Speaker 1: should do that at our website, which is how stopeworks
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
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