Oiran: The Courtesans Trapped in Yoshiwara

About this episode

Japan'sBehind the glittering “floating world” of Edo Japan was a walled red-light district with a moat and only two ways out. Today on For the Love of History, we peel back the perfumed curtain of Yoshiwara to find out who the oiran really were (not geisha!), how girls were trapped in debt, and why the art of the time hid the truth. Then we meet Jigoku Dayu and the monk Ikkyu, and finish with a ghost story at Jokanji temple, often called one of the most haunted places. If you love Japanese history, Edo period history, women’s history, ukiyo-e, or spooky history for fall, grab a snack and settle in. What’s in this episode: How the Tokugawa shogunate built a capital on a swamp and created a legal, taxed red-light district in 1613 Who the oiran really were, and how debt and indenture kept girls locked in behind high walls and a moat Why the glittering “floating world” of ukiyo-e hid the truth, and the one print by Hokusai’s daughter, Katsushika Oi, that showed it The legend of Jigoku Dayu, the Hell Courtesan, and Ikkyu, the Vagabond Monk who believed sin could lead to enlightenment. The ghosts of Jokanji temple, where unclaimed women of Yoshiwara were buried in a m