Around 1975 a friend, who was studying Japanese, described what fashionable women of the Japanese royal court circa about 999 looked like. This was so bizarre that it stuck in my mind, and the minute I read the Ivan Morris passage below, I realized she just might have read it back then!
April 27-30, 2005 I read:
The World of the Shining Prince, Court Life in Ancient Japan, Ivan Morris
The hero Genji was the "shining prince" in question. You can see some Geisha-like qualities on the "beauty tips from the tenth century" passage:
The hair of the Heian beauty was straight, glossy, and immensely long. It was parted in the middle and fell freely over the shoulders in great black cascades; ideally, when a woman stood up, it reached the ground. . . .
* * *
White skin was also a sign of beauty. . . . Since nature could not always be relied upon. . . generous amounts of powder were used to produce the fitting degree of pallor. Over this chalky base married women usually applied a little rouge to their cheeks; and they also painted their lips to give the proper rosebud effect.
Heian women . . . . plucked their eyebrows and then carefully painted in a curious blot-like set, either in the same place or about an inch above. They also went to the greatest trouble to blacken their teeth with a type of dye usually made by soaking iron and powdered gallnut in vinegar or tea.
* * *
We see her then--the well-born Heian lady--with her vast integument of clothing and her voluminous black hair, with her tiny stature and exiguous features, with her pallid face and darkened teeth. A bizarre, amorphous figure she must have been, as she moved slowly in her twilight world of curtains, screens and thick silk hangings. The World of the Shining Prince, Ivan Morris (p. 203-05)
Another fascinating thing is that during this 100 year period, Morris says, "almost every noteworthy author who wrote in Japanese was a woman."
Why? Because men were all writing important documents in Chinese characters--the language of prestige, similar to that of Latin during the middle ages in the West. Women were free to write in ". . . the native Japanese, the language that was actually spoken, in a direct, simple fashion. . ." (Morris, p. 200)
Morris's book paints an intriguing picture of the setting for Lady Murasaki's Tales of Genji. I've been drawn to read Genji. But it's such a long book--1216 pages! I do hear it has some good ghost stories!
I may first be waylaid first by The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon--a less daunting 419 pages. It's written in the same time period, the authors probably knew each other. Plus, there's a translation by Morris, whom I've come to like--and there are rumors of wit in it. Hmmm, let's see, cool ghost stories versus anything with humor in it. With me, humor usually wins, although it's rare wit that can still be funny 1,000 years later--I'll keep you posted.
By the way, there's a lovely website with some insights into Tales of Genji and the Heian era at
http://www.pref.kyoto.jp/inpaku/index2_e.htm
Including music, illustrations, etc.
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