Memoirs of A Geisha

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My feeling about this Novel

I love this novel so much after i had finished reading it. I had read her painful childhood, her arduous training, her persuit of true love, her geisha's life, her life's struggles and challenges, her good friend, Pumpkin, her sister, Memaha, her rival, hatsumomo, etc. Beisides, this novel is very inspiring, though sayuri met a lot of difficulties, she always could overcome them. And i was very curious about what a geisha's life looked like, so i read it faster and enjoyably. Sayuri is a very lucky and brave lady in this story, and my focus is on her life's challenges, not on a geisha herself.

The struggling love story
This picture is the main character, sayuri, and her true lover, chairman. They finally got together through a-long-time struggling. Sayuri, the main character, had the deep impression on her true lover, chairman, when she met him for the first time, and so did the chairman. But sayuri never knew that until chairman finally told her. One day, sayuri felt very depressed and wept beside the wall. Suddenly a man with a kind voice came to comfort her, and sayuri started to fall in love with him and hoped to meet him again in the future. Sayuri determined to become a geisha since she met chairman cause' she thought she might have a chance to meet him again. Sayuri always kept a hope, one day chairman would accept her love and they could live together forever. Originally, the chairmain also loved sayuri but daren't express it to sayuri cause' he owe Nobu, one of his close friend, a lot of debt. Therefore, the chairman wanted Nobu to get sayuri, and he kept hiding his love for sayuri for a long time. But finally the chairman had the courage to express his love for sayuri so they can live together. It is a very dramatic ending. I really lost my patient when i read this love story, "sayuri, why don't you just tell him that you love him?" I talked to myself.

A turning point
It was very inspiring story, and i was so glad that sayuri started a optimistic mind and was determined to become a geisha. Also, i found the same thing in Robinson Crusoe, looked at things in the bright side. And that was what i told you before, life is always dissatisfactory, so learn to cherish what you have and stop comparing and complaining. And this change may take some time.

Hastumomo (a wicked geisha)
She was only finacial supporter in their living place when sayuri was little, and she hated sayuri very much at the beginning and also till the end. As a result, sayuri's life there started a struggling path and very stressful. I am not sure why this beautiful geisha are so cruel, maybe there is something nobody knows but Hastumomo. You can see how sayuri suffered through the whole story. Hastumomo tried all kinds of ways to hurt her and destroy her image in order to let her leave their living place, but finally she was brave to stand up and defeated her.

In this story there are a lot of metaphors due to sayuri's great imagination. I take one for example:
Considering how cruelly Hatsumomohad treated me over the years, and how very much I hated her, I'm sure I ought to have been elated at the plan(which tried to destroy her party). But somehow conspiring to make Hatsumomo suffer wasn't the pleasure I might have imagined. I couldn't help remembering one morning as a child, when I was swimming in the pond near our tipsy house and suddenly felt a terrible burning in my shoulder. A wasp had stung me and was struggling to free itself from my skin. I was too busy screaming to think of what to do, but one of the boys pulled the wasp off and held it by the wings upon a rock, where we all gathered to decide exactly how to murder it. I was in a great pain because of the wasp, and certainly felt no kindness toward it. But it gave me a terrible sensation of weakness in my chest to know that this tiny struggleing creature could do nothing to save itself from the death that was only moment away. I felt the sort of pity toward Hatsumomo.

What do you think? I think sayuri is very kind and also very wise, the offender always suffers from his offence to others, and actually we don't need to take revenge on him.

Geisha
"The training of an apprentice geisha is an arduous path. However, this humble person is filled with admiration for those who are able to recast their suffering and become great artists. Some years ago while visiting Gion, it was my honor to view the spring dance(which performed by geishas) and attend a party afterward at a teahouse(Geisha is a entertainer there), and the experience has left the deepest impression. It gives me some measure of satisfaction to know that a safe place in this world has been found for you,,..." It is a letter from Mr. Tanaka, who made sayuri become a geisha. Sayuri was very sad and depressed at the beginning but the situation finally changed. She didn't choose the life of a geisha but rather than had been carried by the current. Isn't it like our life?