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Research on the Appearance, Deportment, and Skills of Taiwanese Geisha during the Japanese Colonial Era
—A Case Study on the Literati Writing at Hong-Gua̍ t
Abstract
From ancient times to now, when audiences enjoy performing arts, a certain level of aesthetic standard has always existed, meaning that audiences not only pay attention to the skills of the performers, but also their appearance. Especially for women, appearance has always been a major indicator in evaluating the pros and cons of female performers, which highly relate to their material life, performing opportunities and crossover opportunities. People tend to use appearance, deportment and skills to evaluate female performers.
Originally, a “geisha” was a female entertainer who played musical instruments to console the hearts of the customers visiting drinking and singing clubs, unlike sing-song girls at Chinese brothels. Besides having nice-looking faces, other basic requirements of a geisha include having great singing voices, graceful and charming appearances, and being trained with skills such as singing and playing music instruments. This research attempts to explore the essential transformation regarding the images of geisha after the emergence of modernized cities and under the involvement of newspapers, magazines and other mass media during the Japanese Colonial Era of Taiwan. This research further attempts to explore how the image-building regarding the appearance, deportment, and skills of geisha, originally the symbol of elegance, has gradually changed through the depiction of literati writings during the Japanese Colonial Era, an era of transition.
The research of this thesis utilizes the popular magazine Hong-Gua̍ t as the means to observe the abundant meanings of geisha and the complex perspectives of their existence between 1935 and 1944. Through understanding how the writers and editors see the cultures of the appearance, deportment, and skills of geisha as a whole, this research further attempts to analyze the differences and similarities regarding the actual lives of geisha and their fictional images in literary writings as well as how the readers responded to their depictions. This analysis further extends to explore the spiritual sustenance of literati on geisha and the ambivalence of the editors on how the circle of media and communication they possess essentially transformed the “appearance, deportment, and skills” images of geisha under the catalysis of the celebrity effect. All in all, this research attempts to bring about another interpretation in order to further explore the possible research dimensions on the artistic history of Taiwanese geisha.
Keywords: Japanese Colonial Era, Geisha, literati, Hong-Gua̍ t, Appearance, Deportment, and Skills | en_US |