Kyoto, the traditional capital of Japan, whose name even means capital.
With this it is home to a number of traditional cultural points, with maybe one of the most famous being Geisha. In Japanese, these performers are known as Maiko (舞妓 まいこ) and Geiko (芸子　げいこ) and can be found wandering around the old capital as well as performing at restaurants doing Ozashiki Asobi.

So what is Ozashiki Asobi and why is it important to Maiko and Geiko Culture?

Ozashiki Asobi is a traditional gathering party where Maiko and Geiko entertain guests with exquisite dances, fun filled games, and enchanting conversation.
It grants the participants a chance to peek into the life of a Maiko and Geiko.

Maiko, Geiko, and Hanamachi

Hanamachi (or Kagai to locals) are the areas in Kyoto that have existed since before the beginning of this special part of Japanese culture. They mean flower town in Japanese, and there are 5 remaining areas in Kyoto. It is here where most of all Maiko and Geiko interactions happen, with them living in special houses (or Okiya) and working at these establishments or shops.
These areas are full of history and culture, and are the focus of the guided tour that we are offering!

The Maiko and Geiko in Kyoto have intensive training, devoting their lives to this superb craft. One misconception is that this profession is still linked to prostitution in the modern age, while in fact it is not. Maiko join the ranks at an early age and works their way up, learning intricate dances, how to play the shamisen, and learning how to speak the Kyoto Dialect. After mastering these skills, they can graduate to become a fully-fledged Geiko, and it can take up to 6 years to get to this stage.

With such a hard path to follow through with, the numbers of Japanese girls becoming Maiko and Geiko have drastically decreased over the past decade. From its peak in 1925 of 1929 Maiko and Geiko living in Kyoto to the current number of 260 (80 Maiko and 180 Geiko), the number of Geiko in Kyoto are slowly in decline.

※Honkawa Data Tribune

Each year, there are girls all over Japan that wish to become Geiko, and they enter knowing that they won't be allowed to use mobile phones, or to watch TV or to be a part of the digital age. Knowing all of this, they still enter, and it is this part that attracts a large number of fans. People wish to support and cheer on these amazing individuals that devote themselves to an art that is in essence a lifelong performance.
It is this part of the culture that we also want people to see, to let the world know of the effort that is put in to keeping this art alive.

Bringing Maiko and Geiko Culture to the wider world

After bringing on international help to support the dinner banquets, we want to start bringing in foreign visitors to come and join in with these events! By doing so, we wish to create fans all over the world that will help give the Maiko and Geiko support to carry on with this amazing but tough part of Japanese culture. However there are many that can't come to Japan to enjoy this part of the culture.
For those who can't come but want to learn more about Maiko and Geiko culture, we want to offer a special return, a digital Photo Album full of pictures of Maiko and Geisha, pictures that aren't normally seen by many. By taking pictures throughout the year and sending 3 separate albums, we hope that you can learn about the different things that Maiko and Geiko do during their training and daily life, as well as events that they attend. As you learn about these different parts of this fantastic culture, we wish for you to be able to tell others about it, and by doing so spreading the culture to many other potential fans!

With Japan's population being only 3% foreigners and the remaining 97% being Japanese nationals, it's obvious it has a long way to go in terms of accommodating foreigners. Kyoto alone had over 53.6 million people visit the area in 2017, but even with this only 27% that stayed overnight were from North America and Europe compared to the 58% from Asia. This leads to a rather large gap in what accommodations are made for visitors from English speaking countries.

No Experience, No Entrance

As well as this, many establishments that deal with Maiko and Geiko aren't fond of welcoming those that have never had the experience of Ozashiki Asobi before, leaving even many Japanese people in the dark about how to enjoy this amazing traditional part of Japanese culture.
This idea of or Refusal of First Timers(一見さんお断り), is quite prominent, and while it might seem harsh, it is mainly due to the reasoning that many don't know the manners or how to act during Ozashiki Asobi.
It's this reasoning that means that many foreigners as well as Japanese people aren't familiar with the culture of Maiko and Geiko, and why there is both a lot of misinformation about their jobs as well as why the amount of people that support the culture is also decreasing.

The main idea behind this project is increasing the fan base of Maiko and Geiko. By hitting just a small number of people and spreading it out from there, we hope to create an even stronger fan base, that help to support the Maiko and Geiko in their endeavors. The process of creating this fanbase rests on both the bringing together of our growing community on Facebook, as well as on different services via influencers and so on. Finally while having people learn about Maiko and Geiko culture is an extremely happy thing, we also need people to also attend events and shows as well, as at the end of the day, the culture is not only a lifestyle choice but a job as well. Therefore we hope to use a large part of the funds raised to both promote and run events in the future as well as promote to a larger audience overseas. We hope that you that are reading this can help us to create new fans and help keep Maiko and Geiko culture alive.

Guided Tour Around Hanamachi Followed Up With Maiko Dance and Meet-Up

For those that are able to come to Kyoto, we have prepared a really amazing and special return for you! We plan to guide you around the area where Maiko and Geiko live and work, with an expert in the subject there to explain about the history, culture, and work and life styles of the Maiko and Geiko. After this hour tour of the area, we'll take you to a theatre who's speciality is Maiko, where you can not only watch the Maiko dance, but also ask questions and talk with them too! After you can get a picture with the Maiko as a thank you present!

■Basic Information
Dates: Most dates are fine (Please contact to confirm)　
Time: 15:00～17:00
Place: Miyakawacho Maiko Theatre　宮川町舞妓シアター
Native Guide Included

Digital Photo Album

This return is aimed at those that aren't able to come, but wish to learn more and see more of these amazing people! We will create a digital photo album that will contain 25 or more photos with annotations from our resident native guide! What's more is that for those of you that choose to back a little more, you can get access to 2 extra sets of photo albums, all of different seasons. This will be sent to you at two separate times of the year, meaning that you will be able to get to know about Maiko and Geiko extremely well!

Kaoru Wasa - Maiko Club Manager

Hello everyone, my name is Kaoru Wasa (和佐 薫), and I help with the running of Maiko Club (舞子倶楽部) and Geisha Japan. Our aim is to bring the wonderful and beautiful traditional culture of Geisha to the world. As well as this, we run events like no other company in Japan. We're looking to not only carry on this work but expand it so that people from all over the world can enjoy this amazing traditional part of Japanese Culture. By doing so we hope that we can create new fans, fans that will be able to help support the Maiko and Geiko in their amazing but tough life!

Maiko Club Introduction

↑Click to go to the Maiko Club Facebook page

Maiko Club was made with the idea to allow for many people to enjoy the culture of the Hanamachi (or Kagai to locals) area , in particular the Maiko culture, and to allow people from all over.
Since then we had a massive call from people from overseas, with comments such as:

[I would love to join one of your events in the future!]

[I'll be in Kyoto in the near future, but where should I go to meet Maiko?]

[I can't speak Japanese but I would love to join in with Ozashiki Asobi!]

After seeing these comments, we realised that the amount of people that are visiting Kyoto already have a large interest in Japanese culture, and they wish to be able to not just learn about this culture but also be able to participate in it.

However, at the moment with the culture of refusing first timers to the many different shops, it's hard for Japanese and even harder for foreigners to experience the area.

Creation of Geisha Japan

↑Click to go to the Geisha Japan Facebook page

From then, Maiko Club had the aim of not opening up Japanese Maiko culture to just Japanese people but everyone all over the world!