“The apprenticeship period of the young girl, who usually entered the geisha house by the age of ten or twelve, required a great amount of physical labor, discipline and patience: her duties included such tasks as scrubbing and cleaning, washing laundry, running errands for others, carrying the shamisen of older geisha, and helping the latter in dressing; in addition she attended dancing and shamisen lessons at the geisha school.”

– Women in Changing Japan, edited by Joyce Lebra-Chapman, Joy Paulson & Elizabeth Powers, 1976