senryu Yoshiwara

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. senryu, senryū 川柳　Senryu in Edo - Introduction .
- sakariba, see below
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Yoshiwara 葦原 /　吉原　pleasure quarters in Edo - senryuu　川柳　collection
Taito, Senzoku 4-chome

Yoshiwara 葦原 "reed plains" named after the first location in Edo near Nihonbashi.
When it was moved North of Asakusa, it was re-named (or rather written with a different character, 吉原, "pleasure plains".

They were build similar to the first pleasure quarters in Kyoto, built by Toyotomi Hideyoshi,
to show that PEACE was to be the new rule of the land.
Therefore the Tatami rooms in Yoshiwara used the measures of Kyoto tatami straw floor mats (Kyōma (京間 Kyoma).
Kyoma measure 0.91 m by 1.82 m - thickness, 5.5 cm
Edoma measure 0.88 m by 1.76 m - thickness 6.0 cm




Since the quarters were most possibly constructed with the possible purpose as a fortress toward the North, the access is only via a narrow zig-zag road.
The original area of ponds and marshland was drained to create space for the pleasure quarter.
Streets were laid out in a grid pattern and the area surrounded by walls and a moat, to stop unhappy women from escaping.

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Shin-yoshiwara Nakano-chō 新吉原仲之町八朔図

Yoshihara was the only pleasure quarter in Edo.
It is said to have begun in 1617 when a red-light district was formed by gathering the various brothels,
which had hitherto been scattered throughout Edo town, into the vicinity of Ningyō-chō, Nihonbashi.
Following the Great Fire of Meireki, the pleasure quarter was relocated
to what is today's Senzoku, Taitō Ward, in August 1657.
It is said that on Hassaku (August 1), the prostitutes of Yoshiwara
would wear white kimonos to commemorate the entrance of Ieyasu Tokugawa into Edo Castle.
. source : Tokyo Metropolitan Library .

Other cheap pleasure quarters were in the postal stations along the roads leading out of Edo.
. Okabasho 岡場所 "Place on a Hill" .
Here the meshimori onna 飯盛女 "rice-serving ladies" were on duty.
yotaka 夜鷹 "nighthawks (night hawks)"
yuujo 遊女　"woman to play with", cheap prostitutes 　


. fuuzoku, fûzoku　風俗 Fuzoku, entertainment and sex business .
funamanjuu 船饅頭　"sweet buns on a boat"

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Yoshiwara (吉原) was a famous yūkaku (遊廓、遊郭, pleasure district, red-light district) in Edo, present-day Tōkyō, Japan.
In the early 17th century,
there was widespread male and female prostitution throughout the cities of Kyoto, Edo, and Osaka.
A leading motive
for the establishment of these districts was the Tokugawa shogunate attempt to prevent the nouveau riche chōnin (townsmen) from engaging in political intrigue.
The Yoshiwara
was created in the city of Edo, near what is today known as Nihonbashi, near the start of the busy Tōkaidō that leads to western Kyoto in western Japan. In 1656, due to the need for space as the city grew, the government decided to relocate Yoshiwara and plans were made to move the district to its present location north of Asakusa on the outskirts of the city.
People involved in
mizu shōbai (水商売) ("the water trade") would include hōkan (comedians), kabuki (popular theatre of the time), dancers, dandies, rakes, tea-shop girls, Kanō (painters of the official school of painting), courtesans who resided in seirō (green houses) and geisha in their okiya houses.
By 1900, there were about 9,000 prostitutes in Yoshiwara.
©　More in the WIKIPEDIA !



viewing cherry blossoms in Yoshiwara　花見

. Taitoo, Taitō 台東区 Taito Ward .

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Yoshichoo 芳町 The Yoshicho district
in Chuo ward was another hanamachi 花街 "flower district" red-light district.

Around 日本橋人形町 Nihonbashi Ningyocho, it was called
moto Yoshiwara 元吉原 the Original Yoshiwara.
As Edo grew larger, the district was moved out to Asakusa.
Kabuki theaters like the 中村座 Nakamuraza moved here instead,
so it was still an entertainment area, with tea shops and fancy restaurants.
In modern times Tokyo changed a lot and in 1977 the name was abolished.

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. Oiran 花魁 Great Courtesans and Daruma san .


. amigasa chaya 編笠茶屋 renting a large braided straw hat .
to hide the face for a Yoshiwara pleasure quarter visit.

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The Fuji Marsh and Ukishima Plain near Yoshiwara
Yoshiwara, Fuji no numa ukishima ga hara

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 – 1858)

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TOKUGAWA JAPAN - Ukiyo: The Pleasure Quarters

Robert Oxnam :: With the rise of a merchant class came the expansion of entertainment districts. These pleasure quarters were called ukiyo, the floating world. The floating world also provided a whole new source of subject matter for popular culture and art. Fresh trends in drama, literature, and poetry thrived on the economic and social changes of the time.

Donald Keene :: The pleasure quarters included houses of prostitution, restaurants, theaters, and many other places where people would go. When people were in there, men who went there and went inside there, they forfeited all their particular privileges. An aristocrat or a samurai going in there had no more privileges than a baker or a shoemaker or whatever he happened to be.

The only thing that counted in this world was money. If you had enough money to pay for the pleasures, you would be the person who could enjoy them. And the women — the courtesans, prostitutes, and so on of this quarter — were known by names, Genji names, names taken from the Tale of Genji. So that a merchant could have the illusion that he was spending the evening with a woman who was described in the Tale of Genji.

These women were the subjects of the ukiyo-e, the paintings of the floating world, the pictures of the floating world. These pictures begin as almost advertisements for these women. This is the kind of beautiful woman who lives in this place.

The word "ukiyo" itself in the medieval period had meant the "sad world." That is the world of our existence, this sad world which we should be glad to leave for another world, a permanent world, a world where there is no more of the hardship that we experience in this world. But, by a pun, the same sounds, "ukiyo," were used to mean "floating world." And what "floating world" meant was a world which is full of change and desirable change, and change that's fun. An insistence on now, something that's going on right now, as opposed to the past.

The Japanese traditionally looked back to the past, a golden age when people were wiser than they are now. They lived more graciously than they do now. But in this period the emphasis was on now. Being up to date, knowing what the latest fashions were; knowing the newest slang; going to the theater and hearing about what was most exciting. That was the floating world.

Perhaps the most vivid representation of this spirit is in the paintings of waves. Waves rise, they have crests, they sparkle, they disappear, but another wave appears. It isn't the end of everything once a wave has disappeared.

And so, people of this time were proud of being up to date, which was a rather unusual attitude for the Japanese. They also enjoyed going to the theater and seeing people like themselves. Not only the heros of the past, or people who appeared in the Tale of Genji, but their neighbors, people they knew about. Scandal sheets were circulated, people would sell these broad sheets, and people would know about who killed whom, or what couple committed love suicide together. Any of these activities would be quickly reported. People would buy them and then some dramatist was as likely as not to make a play about it.

Robert Oxnam :: Plays, novels, and poetry all came to reflect the tastes of this urban population. Novels were written to describe the life of the common man. In poetry, the haiku form became extremely popular, as it remains to the present day. Theater became the rage — both Kabuki with live actors and Bunraku with puppets. And famous playwrights wrote for both forms.

- Look at the video here :
- source : afe.easia.columbia.edu/at/tokugawa -

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“Gender and Japanese History” - exhibition December 2020
Countless historical phenomena formed and disappeared over the course of time, but only some have been written down. We call the former “reki” and the latter “shi.” Despite women’s indisputable existence as “reki” in the long history of the Japanese archipelago, they rarely appear in “shi.” Nonetheless, researchers of women’s history raised the following fresh questions through their efforts to bring female figures to light. “Why did we come to differentiate male from female?” “How did people in the past navigate through such gender divisions?” With the use of more than 280 sources including important cultural properties and UNESCO “memory of the world” items, this historical exhibition explores what gender meant and how it transformed within the long history of Japanese society.
... focusing on the sex trade from medieval to postwar times,...
Along with Takahashi Yuichi’s painting 《Oiran》designated as an important cultural property, we will exhibit a prostitute’s diary and hand-written letters by by Koina and Matsugae, popular prostitutes of the Inamoto Brothel in the New Yoshiwara pleasure quarters. Wardrobes, tools, letters, and diaries—These items tell us about the livelihood of prostitutes and their male customers. This exhibition is groundbreaking in the way it reveals the suppression structure over the sex trade through an examination of social characteristics. ...
- source :rekihaku national museum -

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川柳江戸吉原図絵 - by 花咲一男

Illustrated Senryu from Yoshiwara

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At the old entrance gate to the Yoshiwara quarters 吉原大門
was a weeping willow tree, where visitors stopped after a visit and sighed.



mikaeri yanagi　見返り柳 the willow of looking back


source : collection.imamuseum.org
Tamagiku of the Nakamanjiya, Inaki Shinnojō, and
Nakamanjiya Yahei (looking through window)
Utagawa Kunisada 歌川国貞 (1786-1864)

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- - - customers, who visited a red-light district, used to stop around it and look back at the district with reluctance on their way home.
Around the Ichiyo Memorial Hall, there are shrines, temples and a lot that was once Shin-yoshiwara, which are settings of "Take-kurabe".
"Model of Tamagiku Toro"
(created by Hiroshi Miura, right) -- 玉菊灯篭 "Tamagiku Toro" was an event in Nakano-machi, which comforted the spirit of "Tamagiku," a courtesan at a bordello "Nakamanji-ya" in Shinyoshiwara Sumi-cho. Teahouses on both sides of the street placed this lantern in front of their houses. Tamagiku is said to have had both wit and beauty, and have been good at tea ceremony, flower arrangement, popular linked verse and koto music.
She died at the age of 25 in 1726.
- Yoshiwara Shrine 吉原神社
- source : taito-culture.jp/culture/ichiyou


万字屋玉菊 Manji-Ya Tamagiku
Utagawa Kunisada 歌川国貞


見返れば意見か柳顔をうち
mikaereba iken ka yanagi kao o uchi


きぬぎぬのうしろ髪ひく柳かな
kinuginu no ushirogami hiku yanagi kana

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闇の夜は吉原ばかり月夜かな　　　- 其角 Kikaku

吉原のうしろ見よとやちる木の葉
吉原をゆらゆら油扇かな
目の毒としらぬうちこそ桜哉
吉原も末枯時の明りかな
霜がれや新吉原も小藪並
かすむ夜やうらから見ても吉原ぞ
三弦（さみせん）で雪を降らする二階哉
乙鳥（つばくら）やぺちやくちやしやべるもん日哉
陽炎や新吉原の昼の体
時鳥待まうけてや屋根の桶
- source : members.jcom.home.ne.jp/michiko328

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吉原へ男の知恵を捨てに行き　
Yoshiwara e otoko no chie o sute ni yuki

to Yoshiwara
men go to leave their better judgement
behind 　

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男一度は伊勢と吉原
otoko ichido wa ise to yoshiwara

a real man
must visit Ise once
and Yoshiwara



. Ise Jingu 伊勢神宮 Great Shrine at Ise .

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Light Verse from the Floating World
Makoto Ueda - keyword Yoshiwara
- - books.google.co.jp - -

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Minako: Last Geisha of the Yoshiwara



Brief presentations on geisha and Edo culture by director Makoto Yasuhara and Edo specialist Kenji Watanabe, followed by a screening of Minako.
Director Makoto Yasuhara spent six years getting to know and document the life of a practicing geisha of the Yoshiwara district of Tokyo. Until Minako’s death in 2010 at age 90, she was the last living geisha (literally “a practitioner of the arts”) of the Yoshiwara, the only licensed area for prostitution in the old city of Edo (present Tokyo). Yoshiwara was once occupied by courtesans and those versed in traditional arts. Following World War II, the district was officially closed, but the cultural traditions lived on through the work of geisha like Minako.
- source : The Department of Asian Studies Vancouver Campus -

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. Legends and Tales from Japan　伝説 - Introduction .

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松本清十郎 Matsumoto Seijuro from 須佐高浜村 Takahama village in 須佐 Susa (Okayama) owned 揚屋 尾張屋 the store Owariya for introducing courtesans.
In the compound of the estate, he built a small Shrine for kayougami 通う神, (lit. the gods that come and go all the time), the Wayside Gods.
He prayed for the safety of the visitors to the prostitutes, who "come and go".
. Doosoojin 道祖神 Dosojin, Dososhin Wayside Gods .

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Sokaku ソカク (Kikaku) 其角，雨乞の句 Haiku master Kikaku praying for rain
Haiku Master Kikaku and a friend were invited by 紀伊国屋文左衛門 Kinokuniya Bunzaemon to go to 吉 Yoshiwara.
On the way near 小梅村 Kome village they saw people performing amagoi 雨乞い a rain ritual.
Bunzaemon asked Kikaku if there were also Haiku for rain rituals, as there were 和歌 Waka poems.
Kikaku said he would write a Haiku to make rain fall, and if not, would drown himself in the river.
He wrote a Haiku and it begun to rain.
. Enomoto Kikaku (1661-1707) 榎本其角 .

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yuurei 幽霊 Yurei, a ghost

Around 1884 there lived a monk at 三縁山 Temple Sanenzan. He frequently went to the pleasure quarters of 吉原 Yoshiwara and eventually fell in love with 琴柱 Lady Kotoji. He told her about his miserable life and how all would change if he had some money to get a better job. So Kotoji gave him all her money, made him promise never to go to Yoshiwara again and committed suicide.
When he went back anyway, the ghost of Kotoji showed up and scolded him severely. Now at least he changed his easy-going way and later became a high-ranking priest.


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Shizuoka 静岡県 吉原村 Yoshiwara village

. Yakushi Nyorai - 吉原の薬師堂 Yoshiwara no Yakushi-Do .
and Tokugawa Ieyasu 徳川家康 (1543 - 1616) having his eyes cured.
大平の薬師様 Yakushi Sama in Ohira village

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- source : nichibun yokai database -
22 吉原 collecting
05 川柳

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Photo offers rare panoramic view of Yoshiwara red-light district
The discovery of a rare panoramic photograph of Yoshiwara, the largest red-light district during the Edo Period (1603-1867), has researchers hot under the collar.
Taketoshi Hibiya,
a former Keio University professor who studies Yoshiwara’s history, described the photo, likely taken in the mid-Meiji Era (1868-1912), as a “historic material.”
..... Houses and agricultural fields can be seen in the foreground, with the Yoshiwara district shown behind them. .....
- source : TOMOYOSHI KUBO/ Asahi Shinbun 2018 -

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sakariba 盛り場 amusement center
... In the sakariba at night the crowd is omnipresent in the narrow streets
... the changing location of Tokyo's sakariba
... A 1929 survey of Tokyo sakariba shows us a city that is in important and interesting respects different from the city of today.
- reference : Edo sakariba -


江戸の盛り場・考―浅草・両国の聖と俗
竹内誠　Takeuchi Makoto

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. senryu, senryū 川柳　Senryu poems in Edo .

. - Doing Business in Edo - 商売　- Introduction .


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