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- her life. Her early life would also see the military occupation of areas of China and other parts of Asia during the Second World War and this was followed by much devastation of the country during the war, and in turn followed by a remarkable rebuilding of the nation.
Early Life of Ichimaru
Because of the confidentiality of geisha, little is known of Ichimaru�s early life as a geisha. The following are tidbits gleaned from published books on Ichimaru translated by Michiko Warkentyne.
Ichimaru was born into an impoverished family in Nakatsugawa, Gifu Prefecture on the border with Nagano Prefecture on July 16, 1906 with the birth name of Mitsue Goto. Her parents had eleven children, ten of which were girls. The youngest child was a boy but he died at an early age. With so many mouths to feed, she had to leave home and work in a geisha house at the age of 14 or 15. In her later life, she would never speak of her parents.
Ichimaru started out working as a low-rank geisha or os/zafcu-waitress (one who serves sake) at a hot spring spa inn at Asama, Nagano Prefecture. In older times, at spas men and women bathed naked together without inhibitions, but by the turn of the century Western ideas of puritanism began changing this custom and segregated sections for men and women resulted. Male participants often came to spas for fun and games. Groups of businessmen or friends came to the spas to get drunk and to experience geisha and bar girls. The geisha of these hot-spring resorts called onsen geisha acquired a rather poor reputation and were not known for their performing arts.
One day when Ichimaru was asked to sing a particular song by a customer, she was embarrassed and perplexed to be unable to perform it. This single event made her determined to improve her skills. She left for Tokyo and began studying in earnest the songs of the geisha. Her singing talent caught the ear of the proprietress of the Fujita Restaurant in Asakusa, Tokyo. At age 19 she was able to enter a geisha house (okiya) called Ichimatsu-ya, the master of which was a noted actor at the Miyato Theatre. She took on the name of Asakusa Ichimaru in 1926 and would later be simply known as Ichimaru. Numerous geisha have names that begin with the character pronounced �ichi� The element ichi represents the interconnection with one particular branch of geisha and hence a name could often be traced back. The name Asakusa was the name of one of the geisha quarters of Tokyo, which was known for its high and strict standards of training for the artistic pursuits of the geisha.
Accomplished Geisha
The 1920s and 30s were interesting times for the geisha. As was mentioned earlier, their numbers had swelled to about 80,000 by 1929, but by 1934 the caf� girls, a type of low class and uneducated prostitute, came to outnumber the geisha with over 100,000 caf� girls to only 72,000 geisha. The geisha were caught in quite a dilemma. Should they try to change with the times and wear Western clothes and learn new style dances and
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