Talk:Liza Dalby

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[edit] Not a geisha

Hey, guys. There seems to be confusion about Liza Dalby, with this myth that she was once a geisha. Certainly she spent time with geisha, as indeed Lesley Downer did when she wrote her own book on the geisha world. However there is no evidence to suggest she was a geisha in any sense of the word.

To say she was a "novice" is to indicate that she was a trainee. To say that she was a trainee is to imply she was taking the lessons young Japanese women do in becoming maiko and then geisha. But she did not do that, as she admits - so we cannot refer to her as a "novice geisha". Being a geisha is a lot more than wearing white makeup and having a cute name. If someone wishes to re-write this article more fully, then by all means talk about how she was engaged in the geisha world - and that she accompanied some geisha during their engagements for a year.

But a geisha has to go through years of training as a maiko first - and you cannot become a maiko overnight.

Regards, John Smith's 01:08, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Ah, of course she was too old to become a maiko. However to class her as a geisha, even a novice, is a bit much really. It was more a case of her being done a favour by friends than anything else. John Smith's 01:14, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

A woman can debut as a full-geisha without going through the maiko period, as stated in Dalby's Geisha and Leslie Downer's Women of the Pleasure Quarters (The geiko Kikuryuu had attended college and in her 20's was too old to be a maiko).

True, Dalby was never an official geisha, but it doesn't discredit her research or experience. Claw789 04:38, 2 March 2007 (UTC)