Fiona Graham

Fiona Graham is the first foreign geisha in Japan's 400 year history to be accepted. On December 19th, she officially debuted under the name Sayuki. Her major is social anthropology, which requires anthropologists to truly experience their research topics by personally participating in society. For the past year, she has been conducting anthropological field investigations at a geisha restaurant in Asakusa, one of the six oldest surviving geisha districts in Tokyo. She attended banquets as an intern and received multiple artistic training, particularly excelling at playing the Japanese flute. She obtained a PhD in Social Anthropology from Oxford University, specializing in Japanese social studies. She spent half of her life in Japan, where she studied and graduated from the oldest university in Japan - Keio University. She has given speeches in multiple universities around the world and published many works on Japanese culture. In addition, she is also an anthropological film director, and her works have been recognized by many international broadcasting companies. Pan Macmillan's book Sayuki Walking into the Willow World was published in Australia in 2008, and related documentaries are also being filmed. In 2011, Graham opened a kimono shop in Asakusa District, Tokyo. In July 2013, the Japanese Cultural Festival Hyper Japan was held in the UK, with Graham performing under the name Sayuki. In the same year, she also visited Dubai and Greece. In 2014, Graham opened a geisha bar in Kochian cho, Hokkaido, Japan. In April 2014, she was invited to participate in the annual Spring Rain Festival in Nagasaki with other geisha.