KYOTO STATION (KYOTO)

Wicket opens to girl aspiring to be maiko

Photos by Yomiuri Shimbun Photographer Yasunari Itayama

By Ryuji Yanagisawa

Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

Mami Inoue has only vague memories of the stations she passed through on school trips or family excursions. But JR Kyoto Station was different on a particular day in spring last year. She says she will never forget the station's architecture or how she felt when she disembarked from the Shinkansen train there.

The 17-year-old girl clearly remembers the steel beams that crisscross the ceiling of the central concourse. Sunlight streamed through the lattices, and Inoue was reminded of Kyoto's townscape, where the streets are set out in a grid.

"From now, this will be my home," she remembers thinking.

On March 27, 2004, she said farewell to her hometown of Gotenba, Shizuoka Prefecture, and arrived in Kyoto to become a maiko, or apprentice geiko (geisha).

She was inspired by a book she read during the summer vacation when she was a third-grade student in middle school. "Gion no Kyokun (Teachings of Gion)," written by a former maiko, portrayed a woman who was proud of her profession in entertaining and serving customers, and of her role in upholding tradition.

"I wouldn't have found out about the traditional arts or how to wear kimono if I'd only gone to high school," Inoue says. "I thought being trained to be a maiko would fit me better."

Her parents fiercely opposed her plans, and she had no idea of how to become a maiko.

She surfed the Internet and found the Web site of Takemoto, a maiko house in the famed entertainment quarters of Kyoto's Miyagawacho area. Takemoto was advertising for maiko, since local girls were unwilling to adapt to the strict, traditional lifestyle.

Life as a maiko was tough. Inoue tried hard to learn to dance, sing and play the shamisen, which she had never done before. She was not allowed to have a cell phone or call home, since she had to learn the Kyoto accent and dialect, a must for a maiko.

Rie Takemoto, 36, proprietress of the maiko house, scolded her whenever she failed to adopt the appropriate manners required of a maiko.

When Inoue got homesick, she tried to remember the radiant feelings she felt at Kyoto Station. "Despite my parents' opposition, this was something I wanted to do so much. I couldn't quit halfway through, you know," she smiled. Now she speaks in the Kyoto accent quite naturally.

JR Kyoto Station was rebuilt eight years ago as a 16-story building with a three-floor basement. Its construction was the centerpiece of a project commemorating the 1,200th anniversary of the capital's relocation from Nara to Kyoto. The concept behind the design was "Kyoto as a gate to history."

Inoue made her debut on the stage in February, under the maiko name "Fukuhina." The gate has opened up for her, in her new life as a maiko.