Cultivating Women

The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House is a Japanese television series on Netflix that tells the story of two young teen girls who leave their hometown after finishing middle school to become maiko, which are apprentice female entertainers in Kyoto. It's going to seem strange and perhaps a little alarming to westerners, but this is actually a career option for young women in Japan, and they have to start training when they're quite young.

Right off the bat it helps to know the difference between maiko, geiko and geisha, but I'll give you the short version: maiko are apprentice geiko, aged 15 to 20, who undergo 5 years of training to become geiko; geiko is the term for geisha-type entertainers over the age of 20 particular to Kyoto, and geisha are female entertainers (not prostitutes) skilled in the art of dancing, conversation and other forms of very strictly governed and highly cultured entertainment. Yes, that really is the short version. These entertainers also have a long and interesting history, and it's worth learning more about it if you really want to understand the series and all the things they don't explain, but you can pick up on most of it as you go along if you don't want to do the reading.

The premise: Sixteen-year-old best friends Kiyo (Nana Mori) and Sumire (Natsuki Deguchi) leave the hometown to move to Kyoto, where they join an all-female house of entertainers to train to become maiko, and ultimately geiko. While Sumire is a natural, and shines from the very beginning, her friend Kiyo quickly demonstrates she doesn't have the talent for the job. Kiyo is a wonderful cook, however, and rather than leave her friend and return home she makes a bid to become the makanai, or live-in chef for the house.

I think first and foremost the series is a loving tribute to Japanese cooking, and features at least one interesting dish every episode. Some of the very intricate details of training for this profession are shown, too. Otherwise, it's just the story of a very sweet friendship between two girls. There are a few conflicts, but they're mild and quickly shuffled aside. Basically it's a pleasant story that doesn't really resolve anything because nothing is particularly troubling or the situations are ongoing. After all the action thrillers I've been watching lately it was a nice change of pace. Available now on Netflix.

Comments

Gifts

This is a story that starts out very sadly, so if you're depressed by the holidays you might want to skip the first part. As far back as I can remember I've dreaded the holidays. Being poor, having constant family troubles and belonging to a strict religion made that time of year always pretty unhappy. I just hunkered down and hoped to get through without being yelled at or punished because I didn't do something I was expected to do, like sit in church for hours without moving or making a sound while a priest spoke mass in Latin. Gifts were uniformly disappointing, too. My mother usually gave me dolls or socks or underwear for Christmas. I understand now as an adult that she was doing the best she could, and trying to save money at the same time, but as a kid I'd been told good children got what they wanted for Christmas. I was a pretty good kid, but while my friends received new bikes and cool toys and lots of treats from Santa, I didn't. I thought San

We Have Backsplash!

Yesterday my guy and I decided to chose this natural stone as the backsplash tiles for our new kitchen counters (which will be in the same quartz I'm holding at the bottom of the photo.) Since all the bids for installing the backsplash came in very high my guy is going to put it in himself; he's done a bit of tile work in the past, too. I swear there is nothing this guy can't do. :)

Detoxing Results

For twenty-four hours I left these five vintage cigar boxes sit with detoxing agents (baking soda, coffee grinds, dryer sheets, vinegar and Febreze) inside them to see which worked best to remove the tobacco/storage odors that came with them. I then removed the agents and did a sniff test. Before we get into the results, a reminder: none of what I do is ever meant to be expert advice, as I am certainly not an expert at anything. Follow my methods at your own risk, and please first consult an actual antique expert conservator or restorer to detox items that have value for you. Okay, let's see how my experiment worked. Baking soda (left) did nothing to remove the odors. I think if I let it sit for a longer period of time it might have done something, but for a 24-hour test it was a complete fail. Coffee grinds (right) removed 100% of the odors, and left behind definite coffee scent. I like that and think it goes very well with wood, but if you don't like the smel

Rayen

Search This Blog