By YUKIKO KITAMURA/ Staff Writer
May 30, 2024 at 18:24 JST
Isokazu Ota stands beside a new no-trespassing sign on Kosode-Koji street in Kyoto’s Gion district. (Yukiko Kitamura)
KYOTO—Residents fed up with bad-mannered tourists intruding on a small private road in the Gion geisha district here are fighting back by threatening a hefty fine.
Signs installed at both ends of Kosode-Koji street on May 29 warn in Japanese: “No entry or photography by tourists or guided tours because this is a private road. A fine of 10,000 yen ($64) for entering without permission.”
Similar warnings are also given in English and Chinese.
“We do not really want to put up this sign, but the first priority is to protect the lives of local people,” said Isokazu Ota, a senior official of a council of local residents. “We hope tourists will behave themselves.”
The approximately 90-meter-long street leads to Hanami-Koji street, a popular sightseeing spot where geisha and “maiko” geisha apprentices can be seen.
Kosode-Koji is lined with “ochaya” establishments where patrons are entertained by geisha and “okiya” houses that geisha and maiko are affiliated with, as well as ordinary people’s houses.
Ota, 61, said communities in the Gion district have already put up signs prohibiting photography because many tourists chase geisha and maiko to take photos without their permission.
In recent years, foreign visitor numbers have surged. In addition, guides who take tourists to Kosode-Koji and other private roads in the district have increased.
Ota’s council decided to install new signs because geisha and maiko sometimes have difficulties walking along the street and residents complain about noise and other nuisances by tourists.
It has been commissioned to manage Kosode-Koji by the landowner Yasaka Nyokoba Gakuen, an educational corporation that operates a training school for geisha and maiko.
Although the fine written on the no-trespassing signs is not statutory or legally binding, Ota said he hopes the warning will deter unruly tourists.
The council is considering posting similar signs on other private roads in the Gion district.
A peek through the music industry’s curtain at the producers who harnessed social media to help their idols go global.
A series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry
Here is a collection of first-hand accounts by “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors.
Cooking experts, chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life.
A series about Japanese-Americans and their memories of World War II
