One last thing....

To prove that we were authorized to start research.....

A Short Summary on MM 444

For the Spring semester at Bradley University, I decided to enroll in Mutlimedia 444: Field Research in Virtual Environments.The goal of this course was to teach students how to conduct field research in a virtual environment (obviously), but also to gain an understandi

ng for the potential of doing these kind of studies in the future as our society becomes more and more internet-oriented.

At the start of the class, the professor let the students (myself and two others at the time) choose what group we wanted to study in the Virtual Reality program Second Life. Out of the three possible, we approached a sim that was dedicated to recreating a Hanamachi, a Japanese Geisha community. Within the sim was an Okiya, a geisha house that took in new students and trained them in the ways of being a geisha, and a Ochaya, a tea house where the geisha of the Okiya performed. It also had a theatre for plays an

d a large skybox theatre/land for larger festivals and performances.

We decided to initially do our research from both "inside" the community and out: one of our fellow researchers would observe the community like a patron is able to by going to the ozashiki (performances) at the ochaya and at during festivals, while myself and another student entered the okiya as new students. After attaining permission from the owner of the land (and the one who ran the okiya and ochaya), we both enrolled with female avatars as Shikomi, the lowest rank in the okiya. From there, we attended the same ozashiki, the same dance lessons, and the same performances as everyone else on the sim; effectively working as just "one of the group." I like to think that we were also given the same kind of treatment as everyone else who was there as well. 

I know that I spent a lot of time in and out of the community, talking either with different members on a one-on-one level or getting used to the sim itself. I spent often three or four nights a week in the sim, either on hand at an ozashiki to help (while writing notes) or learning their difficult way of coordinating dance animations (for more on that, check the paper once I get a link put up to it.) 

I would honestly not be able to give an accurate account of how many pages of material I had (around 20-30 pages of chat transcript alone from events, rehearsals, etc). I attended ozashiki on a fairly regular basis (when it was held), and tried to make it to almost every thursday-night dance class and sunday staff meeting that was held during our observations there. We had two major events happen during our time of research in the field; Bakaisai and the Miyako Odori. The Miyako Odori was mainly organized by a group outside of the initial group that we were studying and was only open to those who were of the minarai rank or higher to perform in, so my involvement with that was very little.

Eventually I completed the first stage of training, and around the end of our research period I was promoted to minarai. This meant that I no longer had to wear the simple black kimono that was given to me by Okasan of the okiya (the "mother" of the group and the owner of the sim) and was allowed to wear the formal and very bright kimono of the minarai rank. Okasan also gave me the necessary skin, hair, and ornaments for proper attire. I ended up looking much like this:

   

This is me as a Shikomi....yes, those are tattoos. Hehe!

This is me as a minarai. Barely recognizable, eh?

I've actually enjoyed my time so much at the sim that I decided to stay on and go through the rest of the training that one does to reach geiko (aka geisha) status. From observing this group and the interactions within it, I see a very tight-knit and happy group of people together that share a common interest in certain facets of Japanese culture.