Regarding James Guthrie's July 6 query, "Foreigners who became geisha" -- as to why (American) Liza Dalby was not recognized as the first foreign geisha -- the answer is quite simple: Although Dalby performed as a geisha on request, she was never formally trained as one nor inducted into any of the tea houses or geisha houses. She often accompanied real geiko on assignments as she was working on her Ph.D. in the 1970s, and was referred to as "the blue-eyed geisha" in the press, but she was never actually a geisha.
lance braman
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