(no subject)

[oyceter]

Good things about my job:

Someone must have taken some class on the history of Asian-Americans, because they just sold their books to us. The boss was going to turn a few away because they had been slightly highlighted, then noticed I was very interested in one book on Chinese prostitution in early San Francisco, and drew my attention to those. Ha, five dollars! Then employee discount ^_^.

I feel kind of bad that I was an East Asian Studies major and know almost nothing about this stretch of history -- mostly I did Japanese pop culture and ancient Chinese history (and pre-modern Japanese history, 1600-on). Plus, prostitution.

Sexual history/politics really interests me. And it'll be nice to know about this in addition to Japanese hostesses and the geisha and Yoshiwara.

Now I need to find something on Chinese prostitutes/courtesans in pre-modern China!

Comments

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I've been drawn to prostitution/courtesanship/paid companionship since adolescence, too, and felt vaguely guilty about it. I just brought home the Geisha memoir by Mineko Iwasaki last night, in fact. Let me know what else you find. I've only read about Chinese prostitution in SF in passing, in The Barbary Coast, and he leaves the impression that nearly everybody died of disease (not necessarily sexual; some brought on by the horrible conditions.)

[oyceter]

Me too, and I always wondered if I was really weird or something. I will pretty much read any romance that mentions the heroine is a prostitute/courtesan, heh.

I haven't read the Iwasaki memoir, although I've seen it floating around. I actually liked Arthur Golden's book until I read two more books on geisha. Liza Dalby's is interesting, esp. since she's known for being the only non-Japanese person to become a geisha for her anthropology degree at Berkeley (I think). Dalby is very much in love with the idea of geisha, though, and that gets in the way of the book. Lesley Downer has another one that I think buys too much into the entire myth of the geisha and romanticizes it too much.

Cecilia Sagawa Seigle's Yoshiwara is a very good (and perhaps the only) look at the floating world/ukiyo of Edo Japan (1600-1868), of the courtesans and their decline and of the eventual rise of the geisha.

Anne Allison's Nightlife is a good look at the mizushobai (water business aka prostitution) of modern Japan, especially of the entire culture of hostesses and bar maids and the salary men who frequent them.

I also like Gregory M. Pflugfelder's Cartographies of Desire: Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse, 1600-1950. Not prostitution per se, although it covers the kabuki actors who were kind of like male prostitutes.

Hee, that was probably too much info ;). Wow, I really need to buy more EAS non-fiction!

Storyville

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

If you're willing to tiptoe into non-Asian cultures, I highly, highly recommend Storyville, New Orleans, Being an Authentic, Illustrated Account of the Notorious Red-Light District. From the late 1800s till 1914, New Orleans had a legal, licensed, brothel area. People published guidebooks. Among other things, jazz was born there. This book has many interviews with surviving New Orleans residents who remembered, were customers of, or worked in Storyville. Amazon has it here (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0817344039/103-4979641-3947804?_encoding=UTF8).

Re: Storyville

[oyceter]

Definitely interested! Just never really knew where to start...

But ooo, legal brothel area -- interesting! Hee.

Re: Storyville

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Apparently in-call (you call the lady/gentleman and she comes to your hotel) prostitution is legal in Montreal; there was an NPR story about it last night.