InsideJapan News Network

After many year's of decline, geishas are making a comeback in Japan, it has been reported.

Earlier this year, the number of maiko (trainee geishas) in Kyoto reached 100 for the first time in 40 years, according to the Guardian.

Many the traditional Japanese entertainers are earning new levels of respect among teenage girls who are drawn to the glamour of the geisha lifestyle.

Lesley Downer, author of Geisha: The Secret History of a Vanishing World, commented: "The Japanese are far less concerned about appearing western than they once were. They used to be paranoid about what the west thought of them. That was particularly true of geisha, which even Japanese considered too olde-worlde."

A novel, Memoirs of a Geisha, was published in 1997 and achieved international fame. Written by Arthur Golden, the novel follows the life of a geisha in Kyoto before World War Two.



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