#Easy dance moves for women to filthy professional#

Business leaders of the generation born in the immediate postwar years, who had risen to prominence by then, took their cue from the political world and followed suit. Next, in 1993, politicians began to refrain from meeting at ryōtei when the new prime minister, Hosokawa Morihiro, declared an end to the practice for his administration. The first kagai to wither away were the small areas in regional cities whose geisha had been patronized by local politicians and prominent businessmen, and this took the ryōtei favored by customers frequenting these districts down with them.

By the 1980s, hotels and nightclubs had increasingly become the venues of choice for banquets and parties, and the geisha districts known as kagai or hanamachi-the areas in which ryōtei were allowed to hire geisha for entertaining-began to fall into decline. (© Jiji)īut things began to change after the 1970s with the passing of the generations born in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who had led Japan’s postwar economic revival, and when those born a few decades later, who dreamed of social change, also came into their own. Geisha in Tokyo’s Akasaka district in the 1960s. These functions were not simply occasions for enjoying gourmet cuisine they were also vital as venues for social interaction or business networking, and it was a given that geisha would be hired to assist the host in entertaining his guests.

That state of affairs sadly reflects the decline of the profession.Īt least until the 1960s, every town, large or small, had traditional restaurants called ryōtei where customers could arrange for parties or banquets.

#Easy dance moves for women to filthy professional#

Traditional Social Gatherings Fading Awayįoreign readers may not be very familiar with the professional traditional entertainers called geisha, but nowadays it’s not unusual even for older Japanese to be unaware of what geisha actually do.