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National Geographic : 1964 Oct
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After lunch our island guide arranged a bullfight for us, Hachijo Jima style. Two weary bulls butted each other in a 10-min ute bout carefully controlled by handlers to avoid any injury to the animals. Most of the spectators found it exciting; to me it seemed a poor imitation of sumo. Our time was short, and we returned to the airport by way of Hachijo's other seaside vil lage. While my fellow passengers explored a small souvenir shop, I fell irto conversation with a fisherman, Hisayasu Kitsuta, whose elegantly silver-capped teeth gave him a blinding smile. We exchanged bows, and I said his island was wonderfully serene com pared to life in the city. Mr. Kitsuta sighed. "Please tell that to our young people," he said sorrowfully. "They all want to go to Tokyo, where the bright lights are. One day there will be only old people here, and the next day, no one at all." Had he ever wanted to live in Tokyo him self when he was young? He shook his head. "Never," he said firmly, waving across the fields and dark beaches toward the sea. "Here the land is good, the water is clear, and a man can hear the wind. What more could I ask?" He had a basket of bright shells for sale, and I bought a handful for my six-year-old daughter Robin back in Washington, D. C. I explained that Robin was an islander at heart, and Mr. Kitsuta gave me another 100 candlepower smile. "Tell her when she grows up to come to Hachijo," he said, "and I will give her a whole basketful of shells." Unhappily for Mr. Kitsuta, he is in the minority when it comes to Tokyo's bright lights. Few can resist the lure of the city's night life. The lure is not new-a Japanese proverb says that "people of Edo [Tokyo] do not keep their earnings overnight." Geisha's Training Never Ends Today the city has 30,000 nightclubs and cafes devoted to separating Edoites from their earnings. No one is more skillful, and more painless, at the art than Tokyo's traditional entertainers, the geisha. Geisha, unfortunately, are not for every one. An evening in one of the best geisha houses, including dinner, sake, classical danc ing and song, can come to $100. Only the wealthy and those whom Tokyo calls shayo zoku, "the expense-account tribe"-men with large company funds for entertaining clients - are at home in the city's geisha districts. Roughly translated, geisha means "accom plished person," and the profession is both skilled and respected. From feudal times into 477
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