Fiona Graham

Fiona Caroline Graham (16 September 1961–26 January 2023)^[1] was an Australian anthropologist working as a geisha in Japan.^[2][3] She made her debut as a geisha (trainee) in 2007 in the Asakusa district of Tokyo under the name Sayuki (紗幸) as a part of her anthropological study, and as of 2021 was working in the Fukagawa district of Tokyo.^[4][5][6]

Fiona Graham
Graham as Sayuki playing the yokobue Japanese flute in January 2013
Born	Fiona Caroline Graham 16 September 1961 Melbourne, Australia
Died	26 January 2023(2023-01-26) (aged 61)
Nationality	Australian
Other names	Sayuki
Education	Keio University University of Oxford (M.Phil., D.Phil.)
Occupation(s)	Anthropologist, geisha
Website	(archived 2022 version)

Early life

Graham was born in Melbourne, Australia,^[7] and first travelled to Japan aged 15 for a student exchange programme,^[8] where she attended high school and lived with her host family.^[9] She had two siblings.^[1]

Academic career

Graham's first degrees, in psychology and teaching, were taken at Keio University. She completed an M.Phil. in 1992 and a D.Phil. 2001 in social anthropology at the University of Oxford, focusing on Japanese corporate culture.^[10][11] She has been a lecturer on geisha studies at Keio and Waseda Universities.^[12][13]

Graham has published three volumes of anthropology.

Inside the Japanese Company (2003) and A Japanese Company in Crisis (2005) are about the large insurance company (given the fictional name "C-Life") that Graham joined upon graduation, and which she later observed, first as a researcher and later as a documentary film maker.^[14] The book's main subject is "the uneven erosion of the commitment of [the company's] salary men to an overarching corporate ideology",^[14] with Graham concentrating on the cohort who entered the company when she did. The reviewer of both books for the British Journal of Industrial Relations viewed her portrayal favourably, but thought that it "[did] not adequately address wider issues of structure and power relations".^[14]

The reviewer for the journal Organization of Inside the Japanese Company was troubled by the uninformativeness about Graham's interviewees and by serious problems with the book's quantitative survey. Nevertheless, he found the book insightful and rewarding.^[15]

"C-Life" eventually went under in October 2000,^[16][a] and A Japanese Company in Crisis concentrated on the ways in which individual employees thought and acted in expectation of the hard times ahead. The reviewer again found flaws with the book, but on balance gave it a highly favourable review.^[16] The review of the book in Social Science Japan Journal had similar high praise for it.^[18]

In Playing at Politics: An Ethnography of the Oxford Union (2005), Graham built on a 2001 documentary (The Oxford Union: Campus of Tradition) that she had made for Japanese television about candidacy for president of the Oxford Union:

Graham focuses on the highly ambitious individuals who decide that their future careers will benefit more from being known as former Presidents of the Oxford Union than from the quality of their degrees. . . . The carping comments from those on the sidelines, who view the candidates as slimy self-degraders desperate for status, provide an amusing counterpoint to the seriousness of the contestants.^[19]

The reviewer for the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute found the book a "witty examination of British political processes" and "[recommended it] to all would-be politicians and their tutors".^[19]

Geisha activities

 

Sayuki (left) and one of her trainees in January 2013

Graham initially entered the geisha profession with the intention of directing a documentary project for the National Geographic Channel; however, upon completing her training (undertaken as part of the documentary's filming), she was given permission to continue working full-time as a geisha, and formally debuted under the name of "Sayuki" in December 2007, though the Asakusa Geisha Association claims that she did not complete required training.^[20][21]

Graham debuted in the Asakusa geisha district of Tokyo, and her training before this lasted for a year; this included lessons on dance, tea ceremony and the shamisen. Graham specialised in yokobue (the Japanese side-blown flute).^[22] As of 2013^[update], the documentary itself remained unfinished.^[23]

After working in Asakusa for four years as a geisha, Graham applied for permission to take over the okiya run by her geisha mother, who was retiring due to ill health; her request was denied on the grounds of her being a foreigner.^[24]

In 2011, after being asked to leave the geisha community of Asakusa, Graham left to operate independently (against the Asakusa Geisha Association's regulations), though she continued to work as a geisha within the area, opening a kimono shop in Asakusa in the same year.^[25][26][20] In 2013, Graham was running an independent okiya in Yanaka, Tokyo, with four apprentices. By 2021, Graham had permanent residency in Japan and was running an okiya in the Fukagawa district of Tokyo with three apprentices.^[6] Graham allowed tourists to come and watch the young geisha have their lessons.^[4]

Graham travelled internationally to demonstrate the traditional arts employed by geisha, visiting the United Kingdom to perform at the Hyper Japan festival in 2013,^[27] Dubai in the same year,^[23] and Brazil in 2015.^[28]

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Japan in 2020, Graham added online geisha banquets to the okiya's repertoire of events.^[29]

Graham died in January 2023.^[1]

Wanaka Gym court case

In December 2010, a New Zealand company owned solely by Graham, The Wanaka Gym Ltd., was fined a total of NZ$64,000 and ordered to pay NZ$9,000 in costs, following a conviction relating to an unsafe building used for tourist accommodation. The building had been declared "dangerous" in June 2008, but continued to house paying residents in the two months after.^[30] After the conviction, Graham made a number of unsuccessful appeals, and a final leave to appeal by both Graham and the company was rejected in December 2014 by the Supreme Court of New Zealand.^[31][32]

Books by Graham

• Inside the Japanese Company. London: Routledge, 2003. doi:10.4324/9780203433638. Hardback ISBN 0-415-30670-1, Adobe eReader ISBN 0-203-34098-1, ebook ISBN 0-203-43363-7.
• A Japanese Company in Crisis: Ideology, Strategy and Narrative. RoutledgeCurzon Contemporary Japan series, 1. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005. ISBN 0-415-34685-1.
• Playing at Politics: An Ethnography of the Oxford Union. Edinburgh: Dunedin Academic Press, 2005. ISBN 9781281232168, ISBN 9781906716851, paperback ISBN 978-1-903765-52-4.

Notes

1. The large Japanese insurance company Chiyoda Seimei Hoken [ja] also collapsed in October 2000.^[17]

References

1. "FIONA CAROLINE GRAHAM". The Age. 31 January 2023. Retrieved 2 October 2023.
2. Ng, Adelaine (1 August 2011). "A glimpse into the secret world of geisha". Retrieved 13 May 2013.
3. "The Sayuki Geisha Banquet service Starts!!". Niseko Japan. Japan: Niseko Promotion Board Co., Ltd. 7 January 2013. Archived from the original on 30 June 2013. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
4. Bissoux, Bunny (14 October 2017). "A Day in the Life of a Geisha". Tokyo Weekender. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
5. Brooks, Harrison (25 October 2018). "Keeping a tradition alive, from the outside in". Bangkok Post. Retrieved 19 January 2019.
6. Swan, Scott (22 January 2021). "Get up close to the geishas of Japan and discover the history of this mysterious practice". WTHR. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
7. . Library of Congress. 2015. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 16 March 2015. ... studied at Keio Univ., worked in the Japanese life insurance industry; later, Master's degree, management studies and Doctorate in social anthropology, U. of Oxford; her exper. and production of a film documentary for NHK form the basis for the fieldwork in the book ... data sh.
8. Ryall, Julian (9 January 2008). "Westerner inducted into mysteries of geisha". The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group Limited. Retrieved 6 June 2011.
9. Grunebaum, Dan (June 2016). "Sayuki: Being a gaijin geisha isn't easy but it can be fun". Metropolis Magazine.
10. Graham, Fiona (1992). (Thesis). Thesis MPhil--University of Oxford. Archived from the original on 20 May 2021. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
11. Graham, Fiona (2001). (Thesis). Thesis DPhil--University of Oxford. Archived from the original on 20 May 2021. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
12. "2012-2013 Keio University: International Center Courses" (PDF). Retrieved 29 October 2015.
13. (PDF). April 2014. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 June 2014. Retrieved 29 October 2015.
14. Tony Elger, "Japanese employment relations after the bubble", British Journal of Industrial Relations 44 (2006): 801–805, doi:10.1111/j.1467-8543.2006.00524_1.x. (Review of Graham's Inside the Japanese Company and A Japanese Company in Crisis and of Ross Mouer and Hirosuke Kawanishi's A Sociology of Work in Japan.)
15. Leo McCann, "Lives under pressure: Exploring the work of Japanese middle managers", Organization: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Organization, Theory and Society 12 (2005): 142–144, doi:10.1177/135050840501200111. (Review of Graham's Inside the Japanese Company and Peter Matanle's Japanese Capitalism and Modernity in a Global Era.)
16. Leo McCann, "Pop goes the bubble: Japanese white-collar workers face up to hard times", Organization: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Organization, Theory and Society 13 (2006):158–160 doi:10.1177/1350508406060223. (Review of Graham's A Japanese Company in Crisis.
17. 千代田生命保険相互会社について, Financial Services Agency, Japan, 9 October 2000
18. Kuniko Ishiguro, untitled review of A Japanese Company in Crisis, Social Science Japan Journal 9 (2006): 141–143, doi:10.1093/ssjj/jyk003.
19. Margaret Taylor, untitled review of Playing at Politics, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 12 (2006): 983–984, doi:10.1111/j.1467-9655.2006.00372_25.x.
20. Novick, Anna (7 June 2011). "Foreign Geisha's Future Uncertain". The Wall Street Journal: Japan Realtime. Dow Jones & Company. Retrieved 14 July 2011.
21. McNeill, David (24 January 2008). "Turning Japanese: the first foreign geisha". The Independent. London. Retrieved 8 July 2011.
22. Martin, Alex (3 June 2011). "Geisha cuts into kimono market". The Japan Times Online. Japan: The Japan Times Ltd. Retrieved 8 June 2014.
23. "The Western woman who became a geisha". Tokyo: The National. Retrieved 14 November 2014.
24. Grunebaum, Dan (3 June 2016). "SAYUKI Being a gaijin geisha isn't easy, but it can be fun". Metropolis. Retrieved 19 January 2016.
25. "花柳界初 外国人芸者 紗幸 好きこそ物の上手なれ". jukushin.com. 11 November 2011. Retrieved 5 December 2014.
26. Wallace, Rick (6 June 2011). . The Australian. Australia: News Limited. Archived from the original on 10 October 2014. Retrieved 29 June 2011.
27. (PDF). Hyper Japan. 2013. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 April 2014. Retrieved 9 November 2015.
28. Lucas-Hall, Renae (18 July 2016). "Sayuki Ushers the Japanese Geisha into the 21st Century". Renae Lucas-Hall.
29. "Entertainers Under the Pandemic - Where We Call Home - TV | NHK WORLD-JAPAN Live & Programs". NHK World-Japan. 20 July 2020. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
30. Beech, James (18 December 2010). "Gym owner fined $64,000". Otago Daily Times. Allied Press Limited. Retrieved 30 November 2019.
31. Beech, James (18 October 2012). "Wanaka Gym Ltd appeal dismissed". Otago Daily Times Online News.
32. "The Wanaka Gym Limited v Queenstown Lakes District Council (2014) NZSC: Judgement of the Court." Archive: (PDF).

External links

• (archived 2022 version)
• Haworth, Abigail (9 November 2009). "Meet Japan's First Western Geisha". Marie Claire. Hearst Communication.
• . Oprah.com. Harpo Productions. 9 February 2010. Archived from the original on 10 February 2010.
• Irvine, Dean (2 February 2015). "'A beautiful life': The Australian woman who became a geisha". CNN.
• "Geishas 'millennials'", La Vanguardia, 28 May 2017.