Rating: 
Summary: disappointed
Review: This woman acts and thinks like a child. Understandably, her upbringing was not "normal" in the everyday sense, but being of Japanese ancestry, I was annoyed by her large ego and her cease-less bragging about herself.
Rating: 
Summary: A beautiful, inspiring, and true tale.
Review: Were do I start... I've been fasinated by the Japanese culture for many years and when I saw this book in Hastings I immeditatly begged my mother to buy it for me. Of course it being a few months until Christmas she bought it for me and then hide it. But then Christmas morning I opened up my fourth box and was reintoduced into the wonderful erotic world of the Geisha.This book is truly a treasure for anyone who has a thrist for true culture. It reaches a depth that most novels barly scrape and tells of the REAL expiriances of the Geisha. Not some other world where they are nothing but concubines! You see the world of one of the greatest Geisha's who ever performed. Through the drama of leaving her parents, training as an apprentice, and falling in love you tag right along feeling every pulse of her life. However Minko-san's life is not just strutting around in a kimono and lighting men's cigatetes... she also has a mind, a sense of humor, and a sense of intergrity. There is this one scene in the book were a man comes up to her and grabs her chest... she in turn glares at him, walks gracfully over to a shrine, picks up a brick, and chaces him around the house until she finnely gets him! This book is marvolus! Anyone can enjoy it. If not for the culture and expiriance, buy it for the pictures!! The book has wonderful photographs of Minako-san, her family, and her costumes. ;)
Rating: 
Summary: Much information of an old Japanese tradition
Review: When I bought the book I wanted to learn more of the Geisha tradition and by that of Japanese culture in general.
I never had believed that such a restricted life is still possible today. Mineko Iwasaki was taken away from her family when she was a small child. With much discipline she learnt traditional dancing, singing, playing instruments and roles in theatre, always being observed by elderly ladies, who wanted to educate her, eg by humiliation via wrong accusations. The meaning of such is explained clearly, as all the other details of the life of a geisha.
A very interesting recommendatory book.
Rating:
Summary: In her own voice
Review: When she was only five years old, Mineko Iwasaki decided to be a geisha. She began training in the arts of dance and etiquette since then. In this book she tells her life story. She described her upbrining life at the Iwasaki okiya. I enjoy reading this book because there is no geishas in the history of Japan has the courage to come forward in public to tell her story! However I feel angry with her parents because they allowed her to be a geisha when she was only five years old. She was too young to make such decision on her own. In order to be adopted by Iwasaki okiya, she went to the court at the age of 10 and 12 to declare that she was no longer the daughter of Tanaka, her own parents. She also terminated her junior high education just because she needed to concentrate on her professional career. I feel terribly sorry for her when I read those incidents in her life. I agreed with her sister, Yaeko that her parents somewhat sold her to Iwasaki okiya for money. This book not only unveils Mineko's life but also help explain what it is really like to be a geisha. It is a wonderful book about the geisha culture.
Rating: 
Summary: Not quite what I was hoping for
Review: You get a lot of her life, that's for sure. But a little too much of I walked down the street, I petted the dog, I bought a ruler. Was hoping for more insight into the Japanese culture and how the Geisha, Geiko, Maiko culture developed. Plus, she blew the whole thing off and became a civilian. But, still readable and interesting.
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