Shimabara, a historical site showing old Geisha culture

Kyoto has several places where Geishas（芸者） get together and serve. Currently, Gion（祇園）located in Higashiyama is famous: many foreign tourists crowded before the Pandemic.

In history, there was a more gorgeous high-class place known as Shimabara（島原）where the Geishas were required to be beautiful and well-educated to welcome guest with high social status and money; Shimabara wasn’t only a Geisha quarter but also a luxury salon as a place of flourishing culture and literature.

Brief history
Shimabara, formally named as “Nishi Shin-yashiki（西新屋敷）”, originates in Nijo Shin-machi （二条新町）to which Toyotomi Hideyoshi (豊臣秀吉) gave an official license as a brothel town in 1589. It was moved to Rokujo Misuji-machi（六条三筋町） in early Edo period and finally settled in the current place in 1641. Shimabara had a staffing service for Geisha: Geishas usually settled in dormitories (Oki-ya/置屋) and commuted to restaurants/salons（Age-ya/揚屋） to serve guests over meals upon requests from the restaurants who received booking from guests. They served as hostesses, dancers, musicians (singers/Shamisen players) and also academians for Hai-ku and classic literatures. Honestly, prostitution was one of them at that time.

CAUTION: All the Geisha who you may see in Kyoto today are not for prostitution. DO NOT GET IT WRONG: the prostitution by Geishas happened only in the past and is no longer available today.

For guests, booking was an absolute requirement to enjoy service from Geishas and people who wanted to use the service for the first time should be invited by those who had been already on a customer list by the restaurants. People without booking or first invitation were shut out. This system wasn’t applied only to Shimabara but also to other Geisha quarters (even at present) and it was supposed to be a reason why these Geisha services have remained good quality since guests with less creditability cannot come easily and it seems that the system wouldn’t have caused unreasonable competitions among competitors.

Meiji Restoration put an end to Samurai period: Tokugawa Shogunate demised and modern parliamentary politics was introduced from the United Kingdom. It also brought a gradual end to Shimabara by developing railway networks. From main stations in Kyoto such as JR (Japan railway) Kyoto Station, Kawara machi station by Hankyu-railway (a local railway company in Kansai area), Shimabara district is not that convenience. As people tended to look at more accessible Gion as the main Geisha quarter, Shimabara had been obsolete. Today, Shimabara is a residential area with some historical sites preserved for new generations.

Historical place to get in touch with old Geisha culture
Among the sites, you can visit Sumi-ya（角屋）. Sumi-ya was one of the highest-valued restaurants serving with Geisha at the time so you can find the preserved sites filled with luxury decorations and fancy items.

Admission fee is 800 yen per person for visiting its exhibition room where you can take a look at Geisha’s items/commodities and major parts of the building’s 1st floor with the grand kitchen and dinner rooms (on tatami mats). Prior booking with additional 1,000yen per person invites you to its 2nd floor filled with…well, rooms for man and woman. You can check its website at http://sumiyaho.sakura.ne.jp/index.html. 

Click on “English” tab on its left side for further information. You may also follow a link to the place at the bottom of this article so that you can see where it is on Google map.