JAPAN: Reprisal

By the most honored rule of her profession, a geisha must never kiss and tell.

Playful Japanese husbands tend to find this coy secrecy infinitely charming, but hardhearted Japanese tax collectors are less pleased by it: Suspecting, that many a plump income lurks behind the kimonoed coquetry of their nation's 29,065 licensed geishas, the taxmen have evolved a system whereby a geisha's income is estimated on the basis of the time she spends at work. Those suspected of earning more than $500 a year are taxed as high as 33⅓%.

Last week, on the eve of a new tourist season, the geishas at Japan's 300-year-old resort city Kanazawa (pop. 250,000) decided that this ungallant Peeping Tomism had gone far enough. In an atmosphere redolent of heady perfume and rice powder, the girls met in the local town hall to air their indignation. "When I received notice that my earnings were estimated at over 400,000 yen [$1,110]' cried willowy Miss Grasslike Freshness, "my voice failed me." "My heart," mourned the veteran Miss Small Superiority, "is filled with sadness."

At the meeting's end, a resolution was moved. "On this day," it ran, "we resolve to go out of business." The resolution was immediately adopted by the 163 girls present.

Said the mayor of Kanazawa: "Most awkward."