Kenban, okiya and ryoteiWho a geisha works for, and how she is called

Each Asakusa geisha belongs to an okiya (the house a geisha belongs to) and is registered with the kenban (the geisha registry office), which is run by the geisha's union. An okiya is not a company, so belonging to one does not make a geisha an employee. Each geisha is self-employed.

A ryotei (a restaurant where guests call geisha) does not keep geisha on its staff. For every ozashiki (a private party with geisha), it calls the geisha it needs through the kenban. Miyakodori, a ryotei that keeps the form of a machiai, works the same way.

The ryotei sets up the ozashiki, arranges the geisha and provides the room. It bills the guest and receives the payment. A geisha's fee is charged by the hour.

Once the guest has paid, the ryotei sends the Tokyo Asakusa Kumiai (the union that runs the kenban) a slip for the geisha who worked and pays the union. The union then pays each geisha. In Asakusa the money moves from guest to ryotei, from ryotei to union, and from union to geisha, all by bank transfer.

A 2003 book on Asakusa says every geisha belongs to some okiya and goes to the ozashiki carrying its name, much as a sumo wrestler belongs to his stable. Geisha are usually known by their professional names alone, but the okiya's house name works like a hidden family name. The book says that belonging to an okiya has been required by regulation since the Meiji era (1868–1912).

The head of the okiya is called okāsan, "mother", by the geisha in her care. If the head is still a working geisha, they call her onēsan, "elder sister", instead. Few geisha live in the okiya now, but the book says it is still the okiya mother who teaches a new geisha her manners from the beginning and listens to her troubles, and that the bond lasts for life, like that of a mother and daughter.

Choosing an okiya, the book says, shapes a geisha's whole career. Unless there is a serious reason, such as the head's illness, a geisha cannot move to another okiya. If it truly does not work out, she can only buy her independence, give up being a geisha, or go to another district.

The okiya mother is a different role from the okami of a ryotei.

While a geisha is in an okiya's care, she pays the okiya a kanban fee, a fee for working under its name. After a set number of years, the union grants her a permit called a kōrō kanban, and she can go independent as a jimae (a geisha who runs on her own). The 2003 book describes this as the Asakusa system of its time. Yuta Kawamura says it is the same today, and the words jimae and kanban-gari (working under an okiya's name) are still in use.

The book adds that taking on young geisha is a heavy burden, so many okiya are made up of a single geisha who is the owner of the house.

We have not checked whether the kanban fee is the same today, so no amount is given.

The usual first step to becoming a geisha is still the kenban, but some people see an okiya on social media and contact it directly, and either way is fine. The 2003 book says that about twenty years before it was written, the way in had shifted from the okiya to the kenban. A 2009 book adds that its author heard many young women phone a kenban with no introduction and simply ask to become geisha.

You may also contact Miyakodori directly. Please send an email to info.ozashiki@miyakodori.art with your résumé and a photo that shows who you are.

The 2003 book says the geisha world rests on trust among three parties: the geisha and her okiya, the ryotei, and the guest. A guest is first of all the ryotei's guest. The only door the geisha world opens to guests is the ryotei, and guests and geisha do not contact each other directly outside the ozashiki, unless they knew each other before. The book also says the kenban is an office inside the union and has no dealings with guests.

The book also describes geisha being called outside the usual ryotei. In a geisha district, geisha are called to ryotei that hold the license to do so. Calling them to a place without that license, such as a hotel banquet hall, or to a ryotei in another district, is called tōde, "going far". The fee is higher, and the bill goes through the ryotei that holds the ozashiki. Yuta Kawamura says this rule is the same today.

The amounts are not given.

At Miyakodori, if the guest has not asked for particular geisha, the okami (the proprietress) decides which geisha come to the ozashiki. The 2003 book describes the okami of a ryotei as the one who puts an ozashiki together, matching each geisha's strengths and how well they work with one another.

The okami of Miyakodori

The 2003 book describes Asakusa from about 1965 to 1974. A ryotei phoned the kenban to say how many geisha, which ones, on what day and at what time. A hakoya (an attendant who carried a geisha's shamisen and ran her errands) went to the okiya to ask whether she was free, then took her answer back to the ryotei, and the ozashiki was set. A booking made in advance was an oyakusoku, "a promise", and an ozashiki called after the first promise was an atokuchi, "a later call". Hakoya and geisha never used the front entrance of a ryotei, only the back door.

After 6 p.m., the book says, the calls came one after another. At the kenban's front desk, the ryotei's name and the geisha's name were written on a paper slip, and a waiting hakoya rode a bicycle to the okiya with it. Kei, a former hakoya, remembers geisha moving from party to party and phoning the kenban from a landline to learn where to go next and when. A hakoya brought them the slip for the next party. Kei calls this slip aijō, and we write it as he says it (愛情). The book writes the same word with other characters (逢状).

From about 1975, the book says, there were fewer hakoya, and the telephone came into use for these messages. Today, when Miyakodori calls geisha, it does so by phoning the kenban.

The 2003 book says the geisha world was made up of three trades: the machiai (a house where guests met and called geisha) and the ryōriya (a restaurant), which held the ozashiki, and the okiya, where geisha belonged. A guest came to his usual machiai, and its okami ordered food from a ryōriya and called geisha from an okiya.

A 1948 regulation put ryōriya and machiai into one category, and they came to be called ryotei. The 2009 book says people who had lived in the geisha world since before the war rarely said ryotei in daily talk, and that older geisha in Shinbashi called the places they worked ochaya-san, "teahouses". The 2003 book also says that even after the word ryotei appeared, the names were not strictly kept apart in practice.

What happens at an ozashiki

Hako means box. A hakoya walked with a geisha when she moved from one ozashiki to another, or went from home to an ozashiki, carrying the long box with her shamisen (a three-stringed instrument) in it. Looking after a geisha's personal needs was the job of the okiya's maid. The hakoya's main work was running errands and carrying the shamisen.

• ▶ Video (Miyakodori on YouTube)A hakoya and a former geisha talk about old Asakusa (English subtitles)

From the filmed interview (received May 2026), 01:10–01:34.

Geisha have their own circumstances, including their schedules and how well they get along with a guest. Kei says that when a geisha was called to an ozashiki she could not attend, it was the hakoya's job to go to the ryotei and turn it down gracefully.

The 2003 book tells the same story. The trick was not to refuse outright but to answer vaguely. What might cause friction if a geisha said it to a ryotei herself went smoothly when a hakoya stepped in. The book says hakoya took on these awkward tasks so that geisha could give themselves to their lessons and their ozashiki without extra worry.

Kei says two hakoya at a time lived in at the kenban. Even at night, if someone called to say a rat or a cockroach had got in, they went. Sometimes they were woken by knocking at the door.

A sashiko coat (a heavy quilted cotton coat worn for firefighting) and a helmet hung at the kenban, ready to wear if something happened, so the hakoya also served as a kind of volunteer fire brigade. Kei says he never went out to fight a fire, and there was only about one fire. At the end of each year, he put on the coat and walked the streets for hi no yōjin, the year-end fire watch.

The 2003 book calls the kenban, where hakoya were always on hand, a kind of refuge for geisha. When something happened, people phoned the kenban before the police, and when a fire broke out, they phoned the kenban before calling 119, the fire emergency number.

The hakoya's name comes from carrying the shamisen box, but in Asakusa today the kenban staff carry the shamisen, and geisha often bring their own. The 2003 book says that a geisha never carried her shamisen herself, whatever the occasion; a hakoya took it to the ryotei of her next ozashiki.

Dressing geisha in the hikigi (a formal kimono with a long trailing hem) is still mainly the hakoya's job today. The book says this dressing has always been done by a hakoya or by an uchibako, a dresser who lived in the okiya. Tying the obi in the yanagi ("willow") style took real strength. In the book, Kei says each geisha is dressed differently, and that he learned each senior geisha's collar line, cords and obi position one by one, with his body.

How Asakusa geisha dress