KMC Forums - The Top 10 Most Historically Inaccurate Movies

Well, the Memoirs of a Geisha comments weren't exactly accurate themselves.

Mizuage [mizz-oo-ah-gay] is an extremely elaborate ceremony that takes place for months, or even years, in an Apprentice's life. Once an apprentice, the geisha must learn to sleep on a stand instead of a pillow, so that her hair won't get smushed during the night, because it obviously takes a lot of time and pain to get the "half-peach" hairstyle that Apprentices where. They wear a red band in their hair, signally to all the people who might become a client that this particular apprentice is getting ready for their mizuage - which men see as extremely erotic because the half-peach is "split," and then has the red in the middle.

Then the apprentice must learn to dance, play the shamisen, walk correctly, talk correctly, even learn how to pour tea or sake in different ways for different people.

The mizuage starts when the apprentice and her sister [mentor] decide who should be candidates to, frankly, de-virginize the apprentice. To these men, the apprentices very privately give "ekubu," a rice cake with, again, a suggestive red jelly filling.

Then the sister lets the men who recieve the ekubu know when bidding begins, and start to sell the apprentice's virginity in an auction-like manner. As soon as the highest bid comes, the apprentice and the "winner" have a very important tea ceremony to bind themselves together in this "first act," and then they have sex, usually in a room in the Teahouse which the man and apprentice frequent.

Then the apprentice wears a white band instead of a red one, and can officially charge her clients more. She is also eligible to have a danna, very much like being a mistress - the danna provides an apartment, food, kimono, pays for concerts for the geisha so she can publicize herself to other clients...

So, long explanation, but mizuage is just the whole sexual deal, the rest is going from student to apprentice, from apprentice to full-fledged geisha. The money from the mizuage is supposed to pay the debt to her okyia, or the house that supported her while she becomes a geisha.

Of course there's a lot more, but I think this is enough blabbing for many, many days.