59 Japanese had never regarded as anything more than fertilizer.
Golden, 1997:346 As the quotation above said, the war brought people into mass-
starving due lack of foods. Many of people ate something that should not be to eat such as soybean dregs, rice bran of wheat flour. And yet the Japanese
government was rallying on Allied Force to resolve the mass-starving issue.
4.3.3.4 Cultural Development
Japan had managed to raise its level of literate to more than 90 percent in the prewar years. The impact of the America on postwar Japan
period, as might be expected, has been enormous. It had rivaled. It is not actually surpassed the influence that the West had upon Meiji Japan. This is
evident not only in the technological realm and in the profound institutional change brought about by the occupation. But it also can be seen in such
aspect of life and cultures. Because of war, Japanese culture lost many of their artists, including
geisha. Geisha population in Gion after war had decreased significantly, and it kept on decreasing due to the incoming of western culture to Japan.
Probably because Sayuri had already expected this, she did not have any intention to go visit Gion. We can see from the following quotation:
I dearly wish I could go back there to visit, but on the other hand, I think I would be disturbed to see all the changes. When friends bring
photographs from their trips to Kyoto, I often think that Gion has thinned out like a poorly kept garden, increasingly overrun with
weeds. After Mother
‘s death a number years ago, for example, the Nitta okiya was torn down and replaced with a tiny concrete building
60 housing a bookshop on the ground floor and two apartments
overhead. Golden, 1997:427 Many Japanese cultures were on the verge of extinct. One of the
sources was many artists and people who know the culture were dead because of the war. So it would be hard to teach and to search a new generation to
maintain the Japanese cultures. Geisha also got affected, and slowly the geisha number in Gion was decreased, and there was nothing government can
do to avoid it.
4.4 Geisha Culture
On this discussion, the writer divided Geisha culture into 7 points. All of them were supported by quotation and explanation.
4.4.1 Belief and Faith system
Geisha were very superstitious lot. They believed in mystic, fortune-telling, zodiac, bad omen, and etc.
4.4.1.1 Almanac
Almanac was like book that contain or crammed with many complicated charts and obscure characters. Geisha always used this before
they decided to done something. They also often used this to decide small matter like buying a new pair of shoes or which direction they must avoid if
they went out on that day. When Sayuri met Mameha on her apartment, Mameha explained to
Sayuri about the importance of almanac. She believed all bad luck that Sayuri
