What's a Geisha?

In preparation for my trip to Florida, I went to get a pedicure. As I'm sitting in the chair, I over hear this woman talking to the man who's doing her nails. In the middle of their conversation, the woman asked the man, "What is a geisha?" The man looks at her like she's crazy, and replies, "How should I know?" The appearance of the man would lead you to believe that his family originates from a country in Asia or Pacific Islands. The woman then remarks something along the lines of "You should know. It's part of your culture." Now I'm sitting here thinking, does this woman actually know where this man's family is from or is she just assuming that he should know because he can be categorized as AAPI. From the response of the man, I'm guessing she didn't because he started looking really pissed and more aggressively states, "I have no clue what a geisha is or does." The woman keeps going on for another 5 minutes insisting that this guy knows what the answer to her question is and starts to appear in a very airheadish manner. Finally, she remarks, "You're Cambodian right? Then you should definitely know what a geisha is!"

I was flabbergasted. I couldn't believe that this woman had the audacity to sit there and try and tell this guy what his culture was and insult him for not knowing. Because of the way the beginning of their conversation had gone, I figured that she knew a bit about this man and she's a regular customer of his. But the minute she mentioned that he's Cambodian and still insisted that he knows about geishas, I just wanted to yell at her and say stop assuming one Asian culture knows everything about the next. And get your facts straight, geisha's are part of the Japanese culture. Maybe if she had watched the movie - that's what brought upon the topic - it would've clued her in.