78 Sayuri did not realize that every time she attended and entertained a party,
she was, in indirect way, contributed to preserve, to maintain geisha culture. As a geisha, Sayuri had successful to do her function and contribute well to the geisha
community.
4.6 The Function of Human Behavior
According to Robert Merton, a famous American Functionalist Sociologist, human functions divided into two types. The first type is Manifest
Functions. This type is intentional and obvious. The other type is Latent Functions. This type is unintentional and not obvious which often demands a sociological
approach to be revealed. For the first type, the writer did not find any proof that Sayuri included on
it. Sayuri from beginning did not have any intention for became a geisha, since she was from fisherman family and did not have any relations to geisha culture at
all. In this case, Sayuri would be categorized into the second type, the latent
function. Sayuri, at first, did not have any plan or intention to become a geisha nor maintain the geisha culture, but because of her environment, also her will to
survive in Gion and to meet again with Chairman, she decided to become one. We can see from the following quotations:
But in the truth is that the afternoon when I met Mr. Tanaka Ichiro really was the best and the worst of my life. He seemed so
fascinating to me, even the fish smell on his hands was a kind of perfume. If I had never known him, I
‘m sure I would not have become a geisha. Golden. 1997: 7
79 ―Well, little girl,‖ Mother told me, ― You‘re in Kyoto now. You‘ll
learn to behave or get a beating. And it ‘s Granny gives the beatings
around here, so you ‘ll be sorry. My advice to you is: work very hard,
and never leave the okiya without permission. Do as you ‘re told;
don ‘t be too much trouble; and you might begin learning the arts of a
geisha two-three months from now. I didn ‘t bring you here to be a
maid. I ‘ll throw you out, if it‘s comes to that.‖ Golden, 1997:43
Was this the life I ‘d come back to Gion to lead? It was just as
Mameha had once told me: we don ‘t become geisha because we
want our lives to be happy; we become geisha because we have no choice. If my mother had lived, I might be a wife and mother at the
seashore myself, thinking of Kyoto as a faraway place where the ship were shipped
—and would my life really be any worse? Golden. 1997:409
Despite she was a daughter of fisherman when she was born before moving to Gion. Sayuri tried her best to adapt with her new environment, and
later after a lot of hard works, Sayuri succeed to become a well-known geisha.
4.7 Cultural Maintenance
