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Authors: Lesley Downer
Tags: Fiction
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where better to do so than in the newly burgeoning pleasure quarters!
Something had gone badly wrong in the shoguns’ plans. The idea had been to sweep vice under the carpet, to restrict the perpetrators of vice—the prostitutes and the kabuki actors, their companions in sin—to specific areas of the capital and thus control both them and their vulgar customers, the nouveau-riche merchants. But instead the pleasure quarters rapidly turned into the most glamorous part of town. Everyone from samurai to the imperial princes and even the emperor himself sneaked off for surreptitious visits.
As well as sex, romance, and sensual pleasure, Shimabara offered all that a sophisticated man about town might demand: elegance, culture, and brilliant conversation with beautiful women in an atmosphere of refinement. It was a place where merchants could entertain clients and show off their glamorous connections, basking in the company of these not-quite-reputable stars. As for what happened afterward, that was practically irrelevant. The show was the thing.
In 1661 a writer called Ryoi Asai coined a word for this new way of living:
ukiyo
(the floating world) from which came the term
ukiyo-e
(pictures of the floating world) for the woodblock prints which depicted the courtesans, prostitutes, and later, geisha who were its denizens. In the past, the word
ukiyo
had been a Buddhist term, referring to the transience of all things. In Ryoi’s
Tales of the Floating World,
it took on a new slant. Life was indeed transient; so what better way to spend one’s time than in the pursuit of pleasure, like a gourd bobbing lightly along the stream of life!
For men it was a topsy-turvy world of pleasure which was the reverse in every way from the world of work and family outside its gates. There, it was said, a man would forget what time of day it was, what period of history, and even his own wife. There the outcast courtesans and prostitutes could play at being queens and the low-grade merchants kings. As for the samurai, who were supposedly at the top of the tree, they were dismissed as bumpkins.
For the women, however, it was no dream. It was where they lived and worked. Even if they wanted to leave, their wings were clipped. Gorgeous though they were, the inhabitants of the pleasure quarters were caged birds. They had been brought to the quarter as small children and had grown up entirely in this hothouse world of women. They knew nothing else. For all their finery and glamour, they were virtual slaves, indentured to the brothel owners.
Almost all were from the lower classes, the beautiful children of impoverished rural families or debt-ridden townsfolk. There were professional procurers or pimps, called
zegen,
who scoured the countryside and poorer sections of the city. When they found a suitable child, they would offer the parents a set sum of money. Buying or selling of persons was illegal so the child would be bound with a contract for a fixed period of time, usually ten years.
For the parents, sending a child off to the pleasure quarters was nothing out of the ordinary; it is still done to this day in Asia. Apart from the much-needed money and the brutal necessity of reducing the number of mouths to be fed, they probably felt they were giving their daughter a chance in life. Going to Kyoto to eat fine food, wear fine clothes, meet fine people, and be educated offered far more hope than staying in the countryside hoeing the soil for the rest of her life. As for the child, according to the Confucian code it was her filial duty to put the well-being of her family ahead of her own. Girls who were sold to the pleasure quarters were considered virtuous and admirable for having sacrificed themselves for their family.
Most were recruited when they were six or seven and had only the haziest memories of life outside the walls of the pleasure quarter. While peasants were lucky if they had millet, the children in Shimabara ate white rice, wore
Something had gone badly wrong in the shoguns’ plans. The idea had been to sweep vice under the carpet, to restrict the perpetrators of vice—the prostitutes and the kabuki actors, their companions in sin—to specific areas of the capital and thus control both them and their vulgar customers, the nouveau-riche merchants. But instead the pleasure quarters rapidly turned into the most glamorous part of town. Everyone from samurai to the imperial princes and even the emperor himself sneaked off for surreptitious visits.
As well as sex, romance, and sensual pleasure, Shimabara offered all that a sophisticated man about town might demand: elegance, culture, and brilliant conversation with beautiful women in an atmosphere of refinement. It was a place where merchants could entertain clients and show off their glamorous connections, basking in the company of these not-quite-reputable stars. As for what happened afterward, that was practically irrelevant. The show was the thing.
In 1661 a writer called Ryoi Asai coined a word for this new way of living:
ukiyo
(the floating world) from which came the term
ukiyo-e
(pictures of the floating world) for the woodblock prints which depicted the courtesans, prostitutes, and later, geisha who were its denizens. In the past, the word
ukiyo
had been a Buddhist term, referring to the transience of all things. In Ryoi’s
Tales of the Floating World,
it took on a new slant. Life was indeed transient; so what better way to spend one’s time than in the pursuit of pleasure, like a gourd bobbing lightly along the stream of life!
For men it was a topsy-turvy world of pleasure which was the reverse in every way from the world of work and family outside its gates. There, it was said, a man would forget what time of day it was, what period of history, and even his own wife. There the outcast courtesans and prostitutes could play at being queens and the low-grade merchants kings. As for the samurai, who were supposedly at the top of the tree, they were dismissed as bumpkins.
For the women, however, it was no dream. It was where they lived and worked. Even if they wanted to leave, their wings were clipped. Gorgeous though they were, the inhabitants of the pleasure quarters were caged birds. They had been brought to the quarter as small children and had grown up entirely in this hothouse world of women. They knew nothing else. For all their finery and glamour, they were virtual slaves, indentured to the brothel owners.
Almost all were from the lower classes, the beautiful children of impoverished rural families or debt-ridden townsfolk. There were professional procurers or pimps, called
zegen,
who scoured the countryside and poorer sections of the city. When they found a suitable child, they would offer the parents a set sum of money. Buying or selling of persons was illegal so the child would be bound with a contract for a fixed period of time, usually ten years.
For the parents, sending a child off to the pleasure quarters was nothing out of the ordinary; it is still done to this day in Asia. Apart from the much-needed money and the brutal necessity of reducing the number of mouths to be fed, they probably felt they were giving their daughter a chance in life. Going to Kyoto to eat fine food, wear fine clothes, meet fine people, and be educated offered far more hope than staying in the countryside hoeing the soil for the rest of her life. As for the child, according to the Confucian code it was her filial duty to put the well-being of her family ahead of her own. Girls who were sold to the pleasure quarters were considered virtuous and admirable for having sacrificed themselves for their family.
Most were recruited when they were six or seven and had only the haziest memories of life outside the walls of the pleasure quarter. While peasants were lucky if they had millet, the children in Shimabara ate white rice, wore
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