I'm still in love with the book. The past 50 pages or so, though, are pretty hard to summarize in a way that expresses how appealing they were to read. To sum up the chapters, Pumpkin has made her debut and became a novice geisha. Her name was changed to Hatsumiyo, but everyone still calls her Pumpkin. Pumpkin's debut makes Chiyo afraid that Pumpkin will become more successgul than her since she is starting earlier. Pumpkin can now attend parties and events with Hatsumomo, while Mameha only takes Chiyo on errands. After a while of waiting on making her debut though, Chiyo realizes that Mameha does this to make sure Chiyo becomes well known before her debut. Finally a date is chosen for her debut according to the almanac, which predicts favorable days for certain events. To prepare for her debut, Chiyo must get her hair styled, which she describes as an extremely painful experience. On the day of her debut, and when she and Mameha are bound as "sisters," and her name is changed to Sayuri. Sayuri feels exhausted that evening, but Mameha still takes her out to a party. At this party, Sayuri comes into contact with men whom she must entertain. She sits quietly and introduces herself as instructed and listens to the older geisha joke around. But then Hatsumomo comes in with Pumpkin, and Hatsumomo tries to embarrass Sayuri in front of the men to give her a bad name. However, Sayuri cleverly outsmarts her and makes a fool of Hatsumomo which delights the men. After this though, Hatsumomo sets out to sabotage her reputation by going to all the same parties as Mameha and Sayuri and spreading rumors about her. Mameha tries to avoid this by not going to parties. Finally, she chooses to take Sayuri to a Sumo fight. There, Sayuri comes into contact with the Chairman again...bringing up past emotions and memories. She tries very hard to impress him and an associate of his at the Sumo match. The associate is serious about Sumo and explains everything about it to Sayuri as they watch the event. Unforunately, Hatsumomo shows up at this event too, and Mameha tells Sayuri to make it look like she's interested in the associate, which might make Hatsumomo avoid embarrassing her. After the evening though, Mameha says she has come up with a brilliant plan to take down Hatsumomo, but she refuses to tell Sayuri what it is.
These chapters have been pretty eventful for Sayuri. She is even closer to her goal of becoming an accomplished geisha, even if Hatsumomo is jeopardizing her chances of being well- known. I felt like I could almost relate this section to my life. Sayuri is very concerned with associating with many men, which she knows will bring her great success later on if she has a good reputation. In a similar way, in school I find myself trying to associate with people, either to make connections that will help me out if I need to cut someone in the lunch line, or walk down the hall with someone, so I don't look so lonely. Or sometimes I even talk to people thinking that it will improve my "social status" if I'm seen with them. For whatever reason, I often find myself in a situation like ones Sayuri finds herself in where I need to be "fake" to improve my appearance. After reading this section, I've come to that realization, and I'm sure many other people can relate to this. Aside from that, I haven't learned many other things about life from the book, but I'm still really enjoying reading it.
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