Fiona Graham

Graham was born in Melbourne, Australia,[5] and first travelled to Japan aged 15 for a student exchange programme,[6] where she attended high school and lived with her host family.[7]

Graham first graduated with degrees in psychology and teaching at Keio University. She completed an M.Phil. in 1992, followed by a D.Phil. in 2001, in social anthropology at the University of Oxford, with her specific focus being Japanese corporate culture.[8][9]

Graham has lectured at the National University of Singapore,[10] and has lectured on Geisha Studies at Keio University and Waseda University since 2008.[11][12]

Graham has published three volumes of anthropology; in Inside the Japanese Company (2003) and A Japanese Company in Crisis (2005), the fictionalised account of Graham's time spent working in a large insurance company post-graduation,[13] Graham focuses on the "uneven erosion of the commitment of [the company's] salary men to an overarching corporate ideology",[13] with the subjects of her study being employees who joined the company at the same time she did.

A reviewer for the journal Organization of Inside the Japanese Company found the book insightful and rewarding, though found the uninformed nature of Graham's interviewees to be troubling, and raised questions of the quality of Graham's quantitative survey.[14] A review in the British Journal of Industrial Relations for both books found her portrayal to be favourable, but thought that it "[did] not adequately address wider issues of structure and power relations".[13]

Her third publication, Playing at Politics: An Ethnography of the Oxford Union (2005) followed her 2001 documentary The Oxford Union: Campus of Tradition, made for Japanese television; in both the book and documentary, Graham focused on the ambitious nature of students looking to improve their future career prospects through the status of having been President of the Oxford Union.[15] A reviewer for the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute found the book to be a "witty examination of British political processes", recommending it to students studying politics and tutors of the subject.[15]

Sayuki (on the left) and one of her trainees in January 2013

Graham initially entered the profession whilst directing a documentary project for the National Geographic Channel; however, after completing her training as a part of the film, she was given permission to continue working full-time as a geisha, and formally debuted under the name of "Sayuki" (meaning "transparent happiness")[16] on 19 December 2007.

Graham debuted in the Asakusa geisha district of Tokyo, and her training before this lasted for a year; this included lessons on dance and tea ceremony, Graham also played shamisen since her debut. Graham specialises in yokobue (the Japanese side-blown flute), having played the flute for a number of years before coming to Japan.[17] As of 2013, the documentary itself remained unfinished.[18]

After working in Asakusa for four years as a geisha, Graham applied for permission to take over the okiya her geisha mother was retiring from due to illness, but her request was denied on the grounds of her being a foreigner.[19]

In 2011, Graham left to operate independently of the Asakusa Geisha Association, though she continued to work within the area, opening a kimono shop in Asakusa in the same year.[20][21][22] In 2013, Graham was running an independent okiya in Yanaka, Tokyo with four apprentices, and as of 2019, has been running an okiya in the Fukagawa district of Tokyo, also with four apprentices.

Graham has travelled internationally to demonstrate the traditional arts employed by geisha, visiting the United Kingdom to perform at the Hyper Japan festival in 2013,[23] Dubai in the same year,[18] and Brazil in 2015.[24]

In December 2010, a company owned solely by Graham, The Wanaka Gym Ltd., was fined a total of NZ$64,000 and ordered to pay NZ$9,000 in costs, following a conviction relating to an unsafe building used for tourist accommodation. The building had been declared "dangerous" in June 2008, but continued to house paying residents in the two months after.[25] After the conviction, Graham made a number of unsuccessful appeals, and a final leave to appeal by both Graham and the company was rejected in December 2014 by the Supreme Court of New Zealand.[26][27]

• Inside the Japanese Company. London: Routledge, 2003. doi:10.4324/9780203433638. Hardback ISBN 0-415-30670-1, Adobe eReader ISBN 0-203-34098-1, ebook ISBN 0-203-43363-7.
• A Japanese Company in Crisis: Ideology, Strategy and Narrative. RoutledgeCurzon Contemporary Japan series, 1. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005. ISBN 0-415-34685-1.
• Playing at Politics: An Ethnography of the Oxford Union. Edinburgh: Dunedin Academic Press, 2005. ISBN 9781281232168, ISBN 9781906716851, paperback ISBN 978-1-903765-52-4.

• Official website
• Haworth, Abigail (9 November 2009). "Meet Japan's First Western Geisha". Marie Claire. Hearst Communication.
• "Lisa Ling goes inside the world of a modern geisha and a real-life nunnery". Oprah.com. Harpo Productions. 9 February 2010. Archived from the original on 10 February 2010.
• Irvine, Dean (2 February 2015). "'A beautiful life': The Australian woman who became a geisha". Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System.
• "Geishas 'millennials'", La Vanguardia, 28 May 2017.
• Bunny Bissoux, "A Day in the Life of a Geisha", Tokyo Weekender, 14 October 2017.