Unusual jobs: a maiko

The students of Pre-Intermediate B prepared very interesting presentations about unusual jobs. Here’s Yuri and Sayaka’s PowerPoint presentation about a Japanese maiko.

MAIKO, the traditional Japanese job.

  1. Introduction of maiko

Maiko is a traditional Japanese entertainer. This consists of performing songs, dances and playing shamisen which is a traditional Japanese musical instrument in Kyoto. In the morning, maiko takes lessons to polish her performance. At night she goes out to work. She performs dances, songs, plays the shamisen and serves visitors sake.

  1. What do you have to do if you do this job?

You have to become geiko after learning kyo-kotoba which is a dialect of Kyoto,you also need to learn how to dance kyo-mai dance, which is traditional Kyoto dance, and how to play shamisen. To be a maiko, it takes a lot of time. Firstly, you need training called shikomi, Secondly, you become misedashi and then, you learn by waching called minarai for a long time. Finally, you can become a maiko.

  1. What kind of personality is best for the job?

In order to be a maiko, you must be a girl and aged between 15 to 20 only. And you need to be patient, tough, beautiful , and you cannot sweat a lot because you must make up and wear kimono at work even in summer.

  1. Would you like to do this job? Why? Why not?

Yuri: There are two reasons. Firstly, I wouldn’t like to do this job because I love my hometown, so I don’ t want to move to Kyoto. Secondly, I sweat easily. I don’t want to wear a kimono even in the summer.

Sayaka: I would not like to become a maiko because, I would have to learn a lot of things and it takes a long time. And maikos have to wear kimonos every day even in the summer. I don”t have the patience.

Yuri, Pre-Intermediate B

[embeddoc url=”https://cceb.edublogs.org/files/2016/08/Maiko-zogfcg.pptx” download=”all” viewer=”microsoft”]

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

About CCEB

We are teachers and students at the Cairns College of English and Business (CCEB). How lucky are we to work and study in the Australian Wet Tropics with the world's oldest rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef at our doorstep! We would like to share our happy posts with the world! Welcome to the CCEB space eveyone.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *