Note 20 — Hikite-jaya.17 (“Introducing Tea-houses.”)

As these places depend upon the custom of persons entering them, it is considered as unlucky to speak about blowing anything out. The hozuki is bitter or acid, and as a pregnant woman is supposed to like sour or acid things courtesans think that to blow the winter cherry is most ominous as it may presage pregnancy and injure their profession. The ordinary geisha (dancing girl) in Japan delights to sit making a squeaking noise by means of blowing and squeezing between her lower lip and teeth the dried and salted berry of the winter-cherry, from which the pulp has been deftly extracted at the stem. This practice seems as pleasant to the geisha as that of chewing gum does to some foreigners.