I am a bar flower
That blooms by night.
Rouged lips,
Gauze sleeves,
Mad dancing
By neon light,
A flower watered by tears.
I am a bar flower,
A sad flower,
By evening a girl.
By day a mother.
Tear-dampened sleeves
Concealing the past.
They are heavy as the night
wears on.
And not with dew.
These are the first two stanzas of the Hostess’s song by Saijō Yaso (西條八十). I’m currently reading “A History of Tokyo 1867 – 1989 – From Edo to Showa: The Emergence of the World’s Greatest City” by Edward Seidensticker. Unfortunately this book only lists the first two stanzas – Loc 5678 in Amazon’s Kindle) and I’m not optimistic I’ll be able to find the rest of it in Japanese or English. I’ll try harder but after searching Google, Google Books, Amazon and Wikipedia in both English and Japanese it doesn’t look good.
This poem attracted my attention because I’ve written something similar back in 2016 which I called “A Melancholy Toast.”
Living in Asia, bar girls are part of the night scene as well as the culture. There are many types of arrangements with the most familiar being “hostess clubs” (キャバクラ) that you’ll find in Japan all the way down to just a bar where the female bartender will drink along with you. There isn’t something similar in America and Westerners never know what to make of these places, usually thinking immediately of something more akin to a brothel. Thinking of a hostess club as a “brothel” wouldn’t be correct in Japan but that line becomes much more blurred in other Asian countries.
What I’ve found fascinating is that the Japanese “hostess clubs” are the modern versions of what geisha and tea houses used to be pre World War II. There are many differences, especially in quality. The geisha were usually limited to the upper class world and there entertainment and skills were incredibly refined. Now days there are certainly exclusive hostess clubs but the fact is this type of entertainment has gone from something only the aristocracy enjoyed to one where a commoner can enter so long as he (or she!) has the money.
Anyway, I always wondered what happened to these girls as time went on. The nighttime world isn’t healthy for the body or the future. From what I’ve read the geisha’s main aim would be to find a wealthy patron and become a mistress. I think modern day bar girls have the same goal. I’ve not read very many stories where these girls end up married and living happily ever after so I’ve always felt a bit sorry for them.
This is why reading the Hostess’s Song had such an effect on me. It was written a hundred years ago! Growing up with a Catholic education I’ve for the most of my life believed this type of thing was limited to modern times and everyone over 60 years old had all been pious church going people worldwide. Living and studying abroad as well as my enjoyment of history has really opened my eyes.
Thanks to Mr. Seidensticker’s very thorough book on the history of Tokyo I’ve learned that “pleasure quarters” have always been a part of Japanese culture. The Yoshiwara, which is a well known area for prostitution in Tokyo, has always been so going all the way back to the Edo period! Now days one might think of Roppongi, Kabukicho that developed due to soldiers barracks and the rise of commerce respectively.
The other item that stuck out to me in this poem was “tear-dampened sleeves.” This is straight out of The Tale of Genji. That is Japan’s most famous novel and it seems every other page references “wet sleeves.” Even 1000 years ago in the highest station of Japanese society, Genji and other nobles were chasing girls although with much discretion. How much easier it would have been if the Geisha or modern day bar girl had been invented.
Returning to Geisha I’ve recently been listening to a lot of traditional Japanese music and came across Umekichi. She plays the shamisen and sings a lot of traditional Japanese music as well as popular music from the early 1900s. Given my interest in Japanese history I like to listen to this music and think about what it would be like in a Kyoto Japanese tea house some evening in the late 1800s.
