Why Do Geisha Wear White Makeup and Wigs?

Geisha makeup is a strange thing. On one hand, it unquestionably looks beautiful on them. On the other hand… it looks strange. Why the white powder? Why the huge wigs?

This is on my mind because I just somehow stumbled across a video showing two geisha applying their makeup from start to finish. I can’t remember ever searching for anything geisha-related before, so I have no idea how or why this showed up in my suggested list. The algorithm works in mysterious ways. But I’m glad it did, because this is cool.

Watch it here, then return for some comments on those whys I mentioned above:

Pretty interesting, eh?

As to the whys, well we’ll start with the hair first.

The Hair

The style geisha wear was the cool thing for unmarried women to wear in the late Edo period (1603–1868). That style was called the shimada (島田), if you’re curious. It became the standard look for geisha in the late Edo and early Meiji periods, when the geisha profession crystallized into its modern form. Especially as Japan turned more and more toward Western hairstyles, geisha retained this older style as a marker of classical Japanese art and values.

As elaborate as it looks, it was originally considered fairly simple. Courtesans (oiran, 遊女) wore far more elaborate hairstyles with excessive ornamentation. Geisha, in contrast, wanted to appear simplified and refined — more artistic than sensual.

Only geisha wear wigs. Apprentice geisha (maiko) have to style their own hair, which is a lot of work. Once they graduate to geiko (fully-fledged geisha) they typically switch to a wig just because it’s easier and faster.

The White Powder

So why white?

For one, white skin was considered a sign of beauty, refinement, and high status in classical Japan, especially among the upper classes. This idea still lingers today, but it was even stronger in the past.

Second, the white face creates a blank canvas on which to paint a new face, helping to emphasize facial features. This is similar to a kabuki actor. They are painting themselves a new face for their artistic role.

But there’s also a more practical reason. Historically, geisha worked at night in dimly lit areas. The stark white makeup made their faces more visible and expressive in the low light, helping to emphasize gestures and features.

Maiko wear very dramatic white makeup — really going overboard to some degree, looking more like dolls than people. Junior geiko still wear white makeup, but they tone it down into something much more refined and elegant, as you see in that video above. Senior geiko usually stop wearing it, except for select highly formal occasions.


So there you go — probably more than you even wanted to know about geisha. Any questions?

The Hidden Boss Trope Used for Laughs in Japan

I came across a funny video the other day. It’s a Japanese commercial that plays into and subverts a very common Japanese trope: the “hidden identity” reveal—a seemingly low-level person who, after receiving a small kindness, turns out to be someone powerful and rewards the one who helped him. While this trope exists in the West as well—and you can find many traditional tales using it—it is far more common in Japan and across Asia in general.

I thought I’d talk about this trope a bit because it’s interesting to me. But first I want to share the video I watched that set me off on this topic:

Just to state the obvious (assuming you watched): the commercial plays it for laughs, subverting expectations at least a few times as the lowly janitor seems to be a much higher-ranking member of the company—dangling the possibility, only to pull it away. The commercial is for a board game, of all things, saying that while miracles don’t happen in real life, they do in the board game (so you should buy it)!

Since this trope is super common, subverting it for comedy is equally common. This is one of my favorite comedy skits that plays on the idea:

I’m sure you can see the hidden twist there, as the lowly-seeming clumsy man turns out to be a yakuza boss. Ken Shimura, the legendary comedian who played the old man in that skit, was a fan of using this trope, returning to it again and again throughout his long career.

Well…I’ll get more into the bones of this idea in my next post on the subject. I wrote a lot more, but in the interest of not overwhelming you, I cut the bulk of what I wrote and moved it to another post draft. So for now, just enjoy these two videos.

Only here

I wrote this haiku nearly two months ago on a day when we had one of those dramatic weather shifts that is common in early spring. I wrote up this post but then I forgot to post it! So here you go, just a little behind the times.

warm one day
and snowing the next
only in this country

via ChatGPT
via ChatGPT

The other day it was warm weather here. The ume blossoms started to bloom, I went out without a coat, it felt like spring was here! Then yesterday… it snowed. Spring weather is often back and forth, but I can’t recall getting so much snow here before, nor so late in the winter.

I wrote this haiku somewhat tongue-in-cheekly. Back in my home country and State, Indiana, people almost constantly complain about the weather. “Only in Indiana!” is an incredibly common phrase when referring to how changeable the weather can be. Warm in the morning and cold at night, stormy at daybreak, but clear and sunny by afternoon, etc. Hoosiers (that is, Indiana residents) are convinced that these kind of weather changes only happen in their State.

What’s funny about that is that I hear the exact same thing in Japan, with people complaining that this kind of changeable weather is only to be found here. I strongly suspect that most places on earth — or at least most places in areas that get all four seasons — see the exact same complaints. The grass is always greener on the other side, eh? And here is the only place where it’s brown!

It’s funny, but that’s human nature for you. We are a silly people. So I suppose this haiku has a slight degree of mocking about it, but mostly it is smiling at the humor of the situation and of us.

Tomcat, Your Wife is Calling

There’s an old saying: “Spring is when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of love.” In the haiku world, that goes for cats too.

大猫よはやく行け行け妻が鳴く
ō neko yo hayaku ike ike tsuma ga naku[1]

hey, big tomcat
get moving already!
the wife’s calling
—Issa[2]

Black Cat by Hasegawa Sadanobu
“Black Cat” by Hasegawa Sadanobu

This is Issa at his most playful. Even in the cat world, you don’t ignore your wife when she calls for you.

The kigo (season word) here is not explicit, but neko no tsuma, “cat’s wife”, is implied, which is usually put under the neko no koi kigo, “cats in love”. With that in mind, the cat’s wife may be calling because she’s feeling frisky. All the more reason for our tomcat to hurry! Spring is the season for this kind of cat activity, making both of these kigo for spring.

We could lean into this and make the translation even more playful:

hey, big tom
better hustle home
she wants you

Issa was a newlywed at the time he wrote this, in 1813, having married his first wife, Kiku, the year before. This was a relatively peaceful and happy time in his life. Considering that, we might guess there is some double meaning here. He might’ve been watching a cat called by its mate — or maybe it was his own wife calling him.

Why You Shouldn’t Sit on the Ground in Japan

A recent Japan Times article mentioned a bit of culture shock Japanese people feel around tourists: the way so many foreigners just plop themselves down everywhere — on the train platform, in front of a convenience store, even on the doorsteps of random buildings. I would make this a link post, but I can’t find the link.[1] So full post it is.

This is one of those small-but-not-small things. It’s not a crime. No one’s going to arrest you. And in places like Europe or the US, it wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. In fact, I bet most of you reading this see absolutely nothing wrong with this and probably would even do it yourself.

But in Japan, this behavior turns heads.

Why? Because the ground is dirty. We are not necessarily talking obviously dirty: just the very idea of outside space has a dirty image in Japan There is a very distinct and clear separation between inside space and outside space in this country. We keep these two spaces separate as much as possible. The best known aspect of this philosophy is removing your shoes before entering a Japanese house. You remove them because they are dirty and that dirt shouldn’t be brought inside.

Sitting on the ground, especially near a building entrance or on a public walkway, comes across as a bit crude. The floor and ground outside is dirty. You want to avoid making contact with it. Your shoes make contact with it, so they’re removed at the door , but if your clothes touch it, they become dirty too. Stripping off your clothes before entering a house isn’t the custom, of course, so the idea of sitting where it’s dirty becomes faintly horrifying.

It bears repeating: The ground outside is dirty. That’s the key idea here. If we want to trace the origin of this we can go back to Shinto and its focus on cleanliness. But I’ll spare you that digression (for now).

Of course tourists and foreigners don’t know this. But this separation between indoor and outdoor space and the feeling that it’s dirty outside is so ingrained in Japanese people that it’s difficult to stop the reactions.

We can even get more specific here. The culture around sitting is tied up in the broader Japanese idea of cleanliness. Many Japanese people wouldn’t even sit on the floor of their own home unless it was tatami. Sitting outside, on pavement that’s been walked on by who-knows-what, in front of people’s homes or businesses? That’s way over the line. You’re not just resting — you’re disrupting the harmony.

The tricky part is, nobody will tell you directly. At best, you’ll get a sideways glance. At worst, you might see your photo uploaded to social media with a passive-aggressive caption like, “This is why manners are important.”


This is really a tricky thing because tourists don’t know the culture and something like this is too nuanced and difficult to get across in a simple awareness campaign. So it probably won’t change anytime soon.

But you, dear reader, if you visit Japan, try not to sit on the ground when outside a home, no matter how clean it looks to you. If you absolutely need a rest and can’t find a park bench (worth noting, many Japanese will put down a handkerchief to sit on so they don’t directly touch the dirty park bench), try to squat down instead — this is something you will see the Japanese themselves doing.

Oh, but the Asian squat… that’s a whole different can of worms.


  1. Hmm.. it may have been on Asahi, or maybe Japantoday… I don’t remember. If you know the article I’m thinking of, please send me the link.  ↩

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