How It All Goes Down
- Chiyo is back at home, but soon, Mr. Tanaka's assistant comes to the house to fetch Chiyo and her sister.
- They follow him to the village, where they discover they'll be taking a train…but not to Mr. Tanaka's house.
- The woman who examined the girls is on the train. So is a man named Mr. Bekku, who complains that the girls smell and tries to fix their appearance.
- He tells the girls they're going to Kyoto.
- The train arrives and the group takes a rickshaw to the neighborhood of Gion, in Kyoto.
- Chiyo is dumped out in front of a large house, but her sister, Satsu, is taken away somewhere else.
- A glamorous woman answers the door, and we're told this is Hatsumomo, "the most renowned geisha" in Gion (3.58).
- She calls Chiyo "garbage" (3.59). She's obviously not renowned for her personality.
- An older woman, who asks to be called Auntie, brings Chiyo inside.
- The building is an okiya, where geisha live and train.
- Along with Hatsumomo is a girl with the nickname "Pumpkin," who will one day be an apprentice geisha.
- The house is run by a woman known only as Mother, as well as another woman: Granny.
- They're not related by blood. But Granny "adopted" (2.90) Mother and Auntie years ago, as part of the geisha business.
- Granny is old and mean, and Mother isn't exactly nice, either. Chiyo realizes she needs to do what they say to make her own life as easy as possible.