About Immortal Geisha

Immortal Geisha was borne directly from my frustrations with the lack of quality websites in relation to geisha that didn't feed to the already out of control misconceptions that most Westerners (and even Japanese people) have of them.

After enough stewing and mulling over the idea, the plan for Immortal Geisha started to form. The seeds were planted when I was still living back in Australia with the manifestation of a website that I refuse to elaborate on (due to the grounds of sheer embarrassment to myself) that touched on the geisha world, but it was not "quite right". It wasn't until after I moved to the USA and had many years under my belt of devouring information and almost two years of being unable to work, that the true form of Immortal Geisha started to emerge and bud into what it is today.

One very important thing that I must stress is that I do not claim to have any formal education in Japanese history or culture, although, that is my ultimate ambition in life. Financially, I am unable to study at the moment, but that does not stop self education, which I feel is equally (if not more) important. Everything I know has come from spending the last six to seven years sacrificing any shred of social life I had and devoting all my spare time to devouring as many books as I possibly can in relation to geisha and also relevant topics in relation to the Japanese culture to feed myself information.

Everything I know today is owed thanks not only to my family and friends who have put up with my quirky behaviour and "obsession" for all these years, but also to those people who have studied this fascinating subject long before my time and provided all these wonderful books, films, documentaries and shared stories available to us today. Some of the information is extremely easy to find at your local book shop or library, whilst other tidbits are obscure and hard to locate...but nevertheless, they are all extremely important to my research.

In relation to the content that I provide on this website, I most certainly do not claim (nor can I even attempt to claim) that all the information that I provide on this site is 100% accurate. What I can claim and promise you though, is that I have done my hardest to be sure to provide information from well respected scholarly resources that, to the best of my knowledge, is true and factual. I don't think that any of us, myself included, will ever know everything there is to know about the world of geisha, unless we were privy to the inside world or one ourselves.

I also try to maintain the content on a strictly unbiased basis - which I feel is extremely important for those wishing to use any of this content for researching. Whilst yes, I might have my own personal views and opinions on geisha and many things in relation to them, I choose not to let them carry over into my articles as I feel that would be unfair on those wishing to research fairly.

In addition to purchasing many books (modern and vintage) in relation to geisha and the Japanese culture, I also concentrate my funds on various collections that I feel are important and help Immortal Geisha immensely.

The first collection is my collection of "Miyako Odori" (Cherry Dance) programs. Not only do they provide wonderful images of geiko and maiko in various of dance poses, they also provide bust portrait photographs, along with names in English and Japanese, of all the maiko and geiko that participated in that particular year. This, to me is extremely important, as one of my ultimate ambitions with Immortal Geisha is to have a huge database with the names of most geisha and maiko along with an image of them, if possible.

The second collection that I concentrate a large part of my time on is of vintage postcards and photographs. I purchase many of these solely in relation for use on Immortal Geisha. Whether I am to use them in the galleries, or to help illustrate articles - they are a wonderful piece of history that help capture our imagination and open our eyes to the flower and willow world.