A modern look at a world of traditions

A quiet part of town, though just a stone?s throw from the heart of downtown Kyoto, the Miyagawa-cho area began to develop around 1666. During the colorful and prosperous Genroku period (1688-1704), when a succession of playhouses, chaya (tea rooms) and theater people set up their businesses there, the neighborhood grew dramatically.

The area became the early center of the kabuki world, when the dancer Okuni (from Izumo, in Shimane Prefecture) did her first kabuki-like dances along the Kamogawa River banks. Kyoto?s Minamiza, the only theater remaining from that time, was perhaps Japan?s first kabuki theater. The area became increasingly popular in 1751, when the Tokugawa shogunate allowed the first tea houses (home to the legendary geiko and maiko) to be built on the south end of the Miyagawa-cho district, on land that belonged to nearby Kennin-ji Temple, a quiet, exquisitely preserved Zen temple complex.
The name Miyagawa, which means purifying river, comes from the fact that the hand-carried mikoshi used to transport the Yasaka Shrine deities during the Gion Festival were washed (or purified) with water from the Kamogawa River south of the Shijo bridge.

Today, roughly 44 tea houses, home to 40 geiko and 20 maiko, are still active in Miyagawa-cho, making it the second largest hanamachi* (flower town) in Kyoto. This article features a conversation with Fumie Komai, the 5th generation mama-san of the Komaya tea house, the olde...