hii! i'm a bit curious of the previous post about the higashiyama onsen hangyoku, how come her obi is taiko? i assume she's wearing yuiwata since she's close to becoming a geisha, however... why? is it common for geisha to also work in snack bars like that? thank you ^^
Hello there o/ I assume that dressing rules in Higashiyama Onsen are more like "house rules" of each Okiya. Since there are only two Okiya with Hangyoku, it's easy to see (so easy, yet I never noticed before...): Let's start with Hanayoshi 花佳. Here's a picture of Chiyono 千代乃, uploaded on twitter in 2014. You can see she's wearing Yuiwata and Taiko musubi. Since I don't really know when she debuted, it could have been taken in her first or last year of being a Hangyoku...
My oldest picture of Fuyuka 冬華, together with one of her younger sisters, probably March 2019. Both wear Yuiwata and Taiko musubi:
And another one - Kotono 古都乃 on the day of her debut. Wearing Yuiwata? Check. Wearing Taiko musubi? Check.
Now, let us proceed to Hananoya 花の家. Mai 真衣 was a Hangyoku from around 2006-09. Momoware and kôken musubi.
After her, Hananoya didn't have a Hangyoku until Iori 伊おりin August 2023. Unlike those who debuted before her, she has her own hair styled (I think it's Hanaogi mage 花扇髷) and wears kôken musubi like Mai. She recently had a katsura fitting (Momoware), so I'm curious if she will continue to have her own hair styled, or start wearing katsura regularily in future.
As for the snack bar. Good question. Perhaps it's owned by someone close to the Hanamachi, a regular customer? It is an extra opportunity of generating income in times of low demand for Ozashiki. Noboru のぼる, a Geisha/Okasan from Tokyo Omori said in an interview in 2020, that some of her employees work in snack bars, when there are no Ozashiki. It's not clear to me if this was separate from their Geisha job, or a part of it.
