Embroidery of Thoughts

I was reading James Patterson's "1st to Die" and there was a part where the sexual deviant character in the story, Phillip Campbell was talking to a woman on the plane going back after he brutally killed his second bride and groom victims. He looked at the paperback the woman was reading;" Memoirs of a Giesha." It interested him that of all things this woman was reading a book about bondage. "Good book?" as he smiled to her direction. "That's what everyone says." She replied and she added that she was just starting. Then he leaned over, sniffed her citrusy perfume. "It's hard to believe, it was written by a man."

I never realized this until I read "!st to Die." Or I would have never looked at the author of "Memoirs of a Giesha" that I have put off for a while after reading the first few chapters. It's written by an American and a male guy from Tennessee, Arthur Golden. It's from the perspective of a man. I was wishing it was written by a first hand experience. If you don't really look at the author you would think it was written by a giesha. I haven't read the whole story, so I won't comment further, according to some who have read this book, it's a good read, a classic. I would probably want to read other books written by a real geisha like the "Geisha of Gion." by Mineko Iwasaki.

I have never had any idea what a geisha is until I watched documentary that illustrates a corps of highly trained women dedicated to the performance of traditional dance, singing and instrumental music—while addressing cultural perceptions of this uniquely Japanese tradition.Their training from an early age by older geishas. How they put on layers of kimonos and how they are taught how to perform gracefully infront of men and etc.

Of course there are still present day geishas performing in teahouses.In the west, a geisha may be thought as a prostitute.Well,being a geisha may not exclude that part of the entertainment may come the sexual involvement since most of the customers are men. At present, it's an art that's becoming extinct.

I have the part where the fiftteen year old girl's virginity was put into auction. At the present day, it would be a crime to do such thing due to the changes in laws and geard towards protection of human rights. But there are still similar cases going on in some parts of the world.We just hear or read about them. I remember I watched a documentary about "Human Traficking" going on in differant parts of the world. Women being recruited and being promised jobs and good pay in other countries, it turns out they end up in a pimp house where they are being abused and mistreated and not even get paid. There was a woman from Bogota,Colombia who was betrayed by her own cousin was working in Japan. When she got to Japan, she found herself in a pimp house, her documents and passport confiscated. She was forced to work for them. There are lots of similar cases going on around the world, people being sold for sex slaves. We just don't hear about them, except when they hit the media.

On a slightly different topic, I was on a plane from Hongkong, I was reading "The Morning Post" and I was shocked to read about this African sexual cleansing. It is an old practice where widows have to have sex with a family member inorder to break the bond with his spirits and to save the village from disease. I find this practice very weird. Well, it's a practice that is slowly deminishing.

Another practice that is a old and is still being practiced at present in a way is "arranged marriage." The first time I heard about this was in highschool when a classmate of mine mentioned she's "nitbe". I was so curious what that means. So I was insistent she explain to me. She said that eversince she was a baby, her parents have already pre-arranged her "husband to be", I said, "what?" She even know who the boy is and that her parents and the boy's parents are close friends. Later on I have learned it's an old practice that people do in the olden times. Some even wed their kids as early as toddlers or even while they are infants. Some parents take it seriously that their kids marry their choice. As to my former classmate. She didn't marry the guy. She ended up marrying another. But even then, this practice is being done in present day marriages. What is amazing is that when two people are pre-arranged and would actually marry each other in the future with their own free will, and I mean fall in love without the pressure of other people. In the Philippines, it's very common for good friends "compadres" to arrange the future of their kids over a bottle of gin.

posted by Unknown @ 12:48 PM