1. Many people in the West think of geisha simply as prostitutes. After watching Memoirs of a Geisha, do you see the geisha of Gion as prostitutes? What are the similarities, and what are the differences? What is the difference between being a prostitute

I think Geisha was more than sex. It was an art form, a cultural expression of hospitality and care. While geisha arose from the courtesan world, during the Edo period they established themselves as part of the entertainment class and were never prostitutes themselves. Sex may have become part of the practice in later stages of the art.