Chinese Geisha

I couldn’t agree more. Your point is spot on and I can’t see why Zhang should be criticised for an amazing job, the film cleary was a tremendous success and she played her part extremely well.

Who remembers the film Scar Face, with the leading role is played by y a non Cuban person plus by speaking with a heavy Accent that made us Cubans Laugh. It’s because we don’t speak that way. Don’t get me wrong, I love the movie, It’s just every time I watch it, the first thing that comes to mind is that Al Pacino, is not a Cuban. So I can understand what the Japanese people are saying. Let’s look at this another way. What made Full Metal Jacket so great. It’s because the film had a real Marine Drill Instructor to play the part. If they would had used an Army Drill Sergeant to play the part as a Marine DI, then we would have had some problems with the Marines by having a U.S. Army service member playing the part of a highly respected position without earning the title of a United States Marine. Same thing goes by having a non Japanese person playing a highly respected position with the tradition and culture that comes behind it as a Geisha by simply putting a Non Japanese person to play the part as a Geisha, of course this film is gonna bring some heat with the Japanese and Chinese people, and I don’t blame them.

the traditional Chinese courtesan died out more officially during 1860s.. but the culture was immitated during later times..which became corrupted.. and degenerated to a mostly prostitute culture.
Much of the downfall was due to the rise of the manchurian takeover.
the qing dynasty and the new laws.

Before qing dynasty.. han culture had a very rich and written, “flower and willow world” as opposed to the realm of the wind and moon.

the term geisha actually originates from official terms used in Imperial China

艺妓，乐妓，生妓， 名妓

and countless more.

of course you have your high ranking, lucky few..
and you have rock bottom.. but that variation is in every culture

“There actually is/was such thing as Chinese geisha.
however, they do not share the same name as the Japanese geisha, and the culture differs from their japanese counterpart.
The Chinese figures are a predecessor of the Japanese geisha.

In ancient china there was no stylized differentiation of classifying names due to the general degradation of women.

They were classified among the prostitutes and in fact a character in their name means prostitute today,

艺妓，乐妓，名妓 … etc.
Yiji, Yueji, Mingji

though in the ancient time, those terms did not only mean prostitute.. it was just a general offical name..
Some of them did not provided any sexual service.. and they still were recognized by that name.. the term during the more ancient periods, implied performer sometimes.

There are educational accounts and texts that have adopted the Japanese institution, geisha, for refering to a certain class of Chinese courtesan.

for in fact some services of these ancient chinese women were mostly delt with classical Chinese arts; calligraphy, painting, music, poetry etc.
and even spiritual, mutual understandings with clients of intellectual kind.

There are traces of this geisha tradition in a more primal form throughout the earliest dynasties of China.

Where they observe many values of humanity as they live extraordinary lives.
the accounts of the most famous of the Chinese geisha were recognized..

especially courtesans like 苏小小 Su Xiao Xiao from 502 Qi Dynasty China.

A woman who explored values of love, humanity and beauty.

They (like the Japanese) marked importance in that they did not prostitute themselves: “they sell their art, not their body.”
–
The two cultures japan and China concidering geisha can not be congenially compared.

They are very different figures related to eachother,

Chinese Geisha no longer exist today because chinese cultural revolution wiped all traces of courtesan culture.. Japanese Geisha are not even allowed in China.

by “Nightingale”