The Shizuka has many traditions that are unique to our geisha. You won't find these customs in any other teahouse or okiya, but the traditions of individual geisha families help create the particular flavor of their entertainment.

Many of these traditions are borrowed from China, such as saying Nihao (Chinese for hello) instead of the Japanese greeting of konnichiwa We often incorporate Chinese symbolism in our names, kimono, and poetry.

One unique tradition of the Shizuka geisha, is that when we enter a user room to entertain, we give the host or hostess a gift of flowers and three rice cakes.

@@@}-->--   (=) (=) (=)

A few of our geisha have danna, and now that we have the means to send them,(see our postcard service page) we have found a new tradition: before a man can become a geisha's danna, he must write a traditional Tanka love poem on a fan, and send it to her. If she agrees, then she must write him one back. Another tradition is, he must design a kimono for her. As we use descriptions of kimono in our entrances, designing a kimono might just mean writing down something like this that she can copy and paste into her entrance: A smoky grey kimono with lilac flowers on the hem or it might be much fancier, even going into a paragraph long poetic description.

The geisha of the Shizuka often go to pay their respects to Tali Cohen at the shrine we constructed to her. This is one of our most treasured traditions, because Tali means a lot to us. We usually leave something at the shrine, something of significance- this can be something like a flower, etc, but I have had geisha leave (with the utmostrespect and love) things like a bannana popsicle, or a duck. This is a classic example of how the geisha of the Shizuka can be silly and reverant at the same time.