These days the narrow lanes and historical streets of Kyoto are full of the so-called pseudo-maiko behaving in ways

These days the narrow lanes and historical streets of Kyoto are full of the so-called “pseudo-maiko” behaving in ways which, to the conservative eye, are horribly inappropriate.To pseudo-maiko, unused to the constricting kimono and balanced upon delicate slippers, simply walking in a straight line is challenge enough – but that is not the worst of it. Like tourists everywhere, the girls are out to enjoy themselves – smoking, snacking, drinking and giggling. Real maiko are taught to speak a special geisha dialect – apart from their skills as dancers and musicians, they are instructed in the art of witty repartee with their customers. To conservative Kyoto-ites, the spectacle of pseudo-maiko, tottering along and squealing at one another in the coarse accents of Osaka and Tokyo, is infinitely distressing.”Maiko are one of the cultural symbols of Kyoto, and we want to preserve their image appropriately,” says Hiroyuki Yamazaki of the Kyoto Tourist Association “Maiko are painstakingly trained in dancing and etiquette They are extremely refined and carry themselves beautifully.

I don’t mind if these pseudo-maiko stay in the studios to have their photographs taken, but once they go outside it causes problems.”Just recently, Mr Yamazaki was contacted by an indignant gentleman from Kobe who had visited Kiyomizu, Kyoto’s most famous temple. “He complained that he saw pseudo-maiko who were very ill-mannered. They did things like eating while they were walking, and they weren’t refined at all. On top of that, the kimonos they wore were very old, and the way they wore them was rather odd.” To the outsider, these may seem like small things to undermine an entire cultural tradition, but in the rarefied world of the Japanese arts, tiny detail is everything.The way a geisha holds her fan, the pitch of her voice, and the angle of her neck as she tilts the sake flask into her customer’s cup – all are painstakingly perfected over years of training. To the refined Japanese sensibility, the sight of a tipsy maiko clumping along in the park, giggling and eating crisps, is profoundly jarring, like catching a beautiful ballerina in full costume picking her nose while barking into a mobile phone. “Pseudo- maiko like that tarnish the image of the real maiko,” says Mr Yamazaki.Belated attempts have been made to regulate the new industry, but this has caused more trouble.

Three years ago, a group of concerned studio proprietors formed the Association of Maiko Make-Over Studios, a self- governing body intended to curb the more slatternly extremes of pseudo- maiko excess. Some studios require their customers to wear placards while they are out walking, making it clear that they are not the real thing. But many studios refuse to join the association, and there are allegations about dirty tricks: one non-member of the association claimed last week that her rivals were deliberately sending out ill-mannered pseudo-maiko to damage her reputation.Amid the controversy, one group remains unruffled – the gentle geisha themselves. Famously reticent and low-profile, the geisha association has stayed out of the fray. Nobuo Hatanaka, chairman of the Make-Over Association, recently met a senior okaa-san or geisha “mother” “She didn’t criticise the business or the customers at all.