Headscratchers / Memoirs of a Geisha

• Why did Chiyo go back to the okiya on the night when she reunited with her sister in order to run away (which her sister decided to postpone to the next night), especially considering how violently cruel they all were to her there?
  • Possibly because going back to the okiya meant less chance of being caught before she and Satsu made their getaway. Where would she go and what would she do for the rest of the day while she waited for Satsu to be ready? At least in the okiya, she had a roof over her head. And she possibly thought Mother and Auntie would send people out to search for her if she was gone for a whole day - and she has to lay low in the same place in that event, as she can't travel too far.

• If I piece together the story correctly the Chairman(tm) was the one who asked Mameha to train Chiyo/Sayuri into a Geisha and paid for all her classes and such, because he liked Sayuri's eyes and wanted her as his special Geisha or something, and Mameha knew about this. So why did Mameha tell Sayuri to get close to Nobu to escape Hatsumomo? Wouldn't it have made more sense to have Sayuri concentrate on the Chairman, the guy who wanted her to become a geisha in the first place because he liked her so much, and just tell him not to listen to any lies Hatsumomo might tell about her? It seems like Mameha steering Sayuri towards the Chairman's business partner would be the opposite of what the Chairman asked her to do, and a completely nonsensical action. One that made the book chapters and chapters longer than it really needed to be.
  • Mameha didn’t tell Sayuri to focus on Nobu completely, she wanted to make Hatsumomo think that Nobu was interested in Sayuri and that she’d back off if she saw them together. However, Sayuri does actually manage to charm Nobu, which everyone else is shocked by since Nobu doesn’t like many things or people (at the cherry blossom party, the chairman says he is always telling Nobu that he needs to enjoy life more). When the Chairman sees just how taken Nobu is with Sayuri, he completely backs off, because in Japanese culture, it’s ‘not the done thing’ to take an interest in a geisha/woman that his best friend is interested in, especially as Nobu saved the chairman’s life, and little else in life to bring him pleasure, whereas the chairman is married with children. It’s only after the incident with the American (in the book: the Minister) that Nobu turns away from Sayuri completely.

• After Hatsumomo leaves, why doesn't Mother take in some more girls to become apprentices and later geisha? Even Mameha knows that the Nitta okiya, as she tells Sayuri during the latter's maiko years, that the Nitta okiya is the wealthiest in Gion without an heir. There are at least 2 bedrooms (the one Hatsumomo initially inhabits and later with Pumpkin in the same room as well as the one Sayuri stays in for a while even after she's adopted by Mother) that up to about 4 or 5 geisha could sleep in (primarily Hatsumomo's that later becomes Sayuri's). Even though taking on the expense of having so many extra girls in the okiya that Mother would have to pay for initially, the girls would repay those debts once they became successful geisha and Sayuri would have easily agreed to take them on as apprentices, as her star was easily on the rise after her mizuage and said younger sisters would have the benefit of her success.