A morning programme on KBS television this morning saw a pair of maiko visit Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto. Maiko are young trainee geisha in Kyoto, aged between 16 and 20. These days many are from distant parts of Japan and are unfamiliar with Kyoto and its tourist sights. I recently saw a film ‘Maiko wa Lady’ which was a musical (done by the director of Shall We Dance?) based on the idea in My Fair Lady of a young woman being trained in how to speak and behave properly. In the Japanese version it involved the maiko learning the Kyoto dialect and geisha manners.
In the tv programme the pair of maiko went up the main ‘sando’ (approach) of Fushimi Inari, passing through the tunnel of torii to the small area where fox faces are filled in on the shrine’s ema, before returning and exiting along the ‘urasando’, or back approach, which is lined with souvenir shops.
Maiko and Inari are a winning formula for a television programme. Maiko tend to be treated like film stars and photographed wherever they go. For its part, Fushimi Inari was recently voted the most popular attraction in Kyoto, outranking even Kiyomizu temple, and it has become a no. 1 destination for foreign visitors too.
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For a detailed description of Fushimi Inari, see Cali and Dougill Shinto Shrines, p.101. For an illustrated visit, click here. For the Fushimi sai festival, see here. For Fushimi as Kyoto’s no. 1, see here.
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