舞妓さんちのまかないさん・Kiyo in Kyoto 👘 (Beginner Book Club) - Week 6

Welcome to Week 6 of the 舞妓さんちのまかないさん・Kiyo in Kyoto :kimono: Book Club!

Week 6 4th of November 2023
Start Page 83
End Page 97
Chapters Chapter 5
Pages 15
Previous week Week 5
Next week Week 7
Home Thread Here

Vocabulary

舞妓さんちのまかないさん Volume 1 Vocabulary Sheet

Please read the guidelines on the first page before adding any words.

Discussion Guidelines

Everybody should feel free to post and ask questions–it’s what makes book clubs fun! But please do not post until you are familiar with Spoiler Courtesy!

Spoiler Courtesy

Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.

  1. Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
  2. Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
  3. Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.
Instructions for Spoiler Tags

Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).

Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:

Example

This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.

The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.

This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.

Posting Advice
  • When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.

  • Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!

If necessary, include an explanation of any discrepancies in the Ebook page numbers from physical page numbers. If there is an easy shortcut for some ebook versions to relate back to physical page numbers, it would be worth it to include it as a third bullet here, or if you want to use chapter page numbers instead of volume page numbers, as is the case with some manga. For example:
Example

For the Kindle version of this manga, the page numbers and the location number are always 3 apart. If you subtract 3 from the location, this will give you the accurate page number!

OR

Please use the chapter page numbers, instead of the volume page numbers. These are located in between the panels!

Proper Nouns

Feel free to add to this as new characters / places get introduced throughout the book.

Example:

Name Reading Notes
キヨ きよ Main character
すみれ aka すーちゃん Kiyo’s best friend
健太 けんた Kiyo and Sumire’s childhood friend

Participation

Will you be reading along with us this week?

  • I’m reading along
  • I have finished this part
  • I haven’t reached this part yet
  • I’m reading this book after the club has finished
  • I’m still undecided if I will join
0 voters

If you’ve already read this book but are still going to join the discussion, please select “I have finished this part.”

Don’t forget to set this thread to Watching in order to stay up to date with the discussion!

9 Likes

Been trying to work out what おとめ on page 92 means. I mean, I can get the gist from the context, naturally, but exactly what word is this? Was wondering if it was some techinal maiko/geiko term for “someone who tried to be a maiko but couldn’t”, except it’s not showing up on any of the glossaries I’ve found.

Or maybe it’s お+止め or something.

Edit: No wait, I found another glossary.

http://www.studio892.com/gion/yakata.html

9 Likes

/edit oh, you found this one too. This page claims it means as the context implies, a dancing master stopping an apprentice maiko from continuing. I can’t speak as to the veracity of the page but it does seem to be one of those “I’m absolutely obsessed with maiko, so I will set up a web page about it” fan pages you get from the early 00s.

The Japanese wiki entry on Maiko-san actually has an explanation attached as well under ‘language used’. So it seems we are not the only people confused

9 Likes

That’s just what Japanese websites tend to look like all the time. :slightly_smiling_face:

Oh, handy. Gonna make sure I check that one first if something’s tripping me up in the future.

8 Likes
The first scene of this chapter gave me big flashbacks to my childhood, where I met the kimono girls with the same old lady on the same kind of scene for the first time :x

Damn the whole speech is super accurate too (youtube source EN).
Need to go look for a Japanese version.

8 Likes

I finally got to reading this week! After all that difficult dialect this week I was a bit hesitant, thinking “I don’t feel ready to tackle this today”, but suddenly I was at the end and had to check that these were actually somehow already 15 pages? :laughing:

Well, know we know. Not in detail, but I guess she has been spacing out a lot, and been deemed not fit to be a maiko. Considering it has been her dream (?) to become a maiko she seemed to take it surprisingly well. She seems pretty content on the sidelines, just admiring (and now actively supporting).

Speaking of, it’s very cute how supportive she is of Suu-chan! To the point where she has to sit out training, but just can’t get over how beautiful Suu-chan is, haha.

8 Likes