The 'JIN' Japan Inc Newsletter<br>A weekly opinion piece on social, economic and political trends<br>in Japan.<br>Issue No. 429 Wednesday August 29, 2007 TOKYO<br><br>*****OUT NOW J@PAN INC MAGAZINE'S SUMMER ISSUE*****
<br>Featuring our Real Estate Special, Web 2.0 Marketing and more!<br><br>This week's JIN comes from a young woman who worked in the <br>hostess trade in Japan. It chronicles some of her experiences <br>and wider observations about the industry. To be continued next
<br>month.<br><br><br>What do you know about Hostessing? Part One<br><br>Whether you have read about them in Western media in relation to <br>the seedy side of Japanese nightlife, or whether you have <br>actually frequented a hostess bar yourself, it is striking how
<br>difficult it is to find a decent account of the industry. I hope <br>my observation will provide a fuller and more realistic <br>perspective.<br><br>Hostesses are the girls of the night, part of the mizushobai "the<br>
water business". They are the ones with their hair set, in flashy<br>high heels and evening gowns. Why is the mizushobai industry <br>such a money maker? Or is it equal in function and form to any <br>other section of the entertainment industry? Where do hostess
<br>bars lie on the industry scale between brothel and regular bar?<br> <br>I worked in Kitashinchi, a section of Osaka, close to Umeda, that<br>caters to the mizushobai industry, for a period of eight months <br>in 2005. For any outsider, to live and work in a community that
<br>is previously unknown to them, except maybe in books, this new <br>society is a mysterious place. Japan's relative homogeneity <br>makes it even more difficult to penetrate but working in a <br>hostess bar allowed me to gain first-hand experience of what is
<br>in many ways a 'hidden' side of society. <br><br>-----------------------------------------------------------<br><br>"As I look into the clear blue sky,<br>across the crystal blue waters of Okinawa<br>I had not known anywhere could be so peaceful and pure."
<br><br>Work getting you down? Need a break from the everyday ordinary?<br>Have a taste of the good life, Yaeyama style.<br>Immerse yourself in the traditional culture and relax<br>surrounded by the beautiful coral reefs, mangrove jungles,
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<br><br>----------------------------------------------------------<br><br>What is a hostess bar?<br><br>There is a famous saying in advertising, 'sex sells', and the <br>mizushobai of Japan is made up of different ways sex is sold.
<br>The broad category of water business, includes prostitution, <br>server, bartender, all the way up to paid companion, or hostess. <br>The range stretches from places where the waitresses do not wear<br>underwear while working, to girls who soap up a client's body
<br>with their own ('Soapland'), and from low-level hostesses who <br>serve and make drinks but also have a price for just about <br>anything, to the higher ranking hostesses who only provide talk <br>and make drinks. Basically all 'water businesses' jobs involve
<br>alcohol, and some sense of sexual connotation. However, the<br>degree to which the form of entertainment is designed to meet<br>sexual or purely social needs varies greatly.<br><br>There are many different ways to identify the level or quality
<br>of the clubs. An easily identifiable marker is the existence of a<br>karaoke machine in the club. If there is karaoke machine then it <br>is a 'snack bar'—these are the cheaper clubs and the girls that <br>work there would not be called hostesses, but rather 'snack
<br>girls' or 'kyabajou', which is short for a 'kyabakura jousei' <br>translated as, cabaret girl. Another way to gauge the level of a <br>hostess club is the prices for a house bottle and the cost for <br>sitting. At all hostess clubs it is the rule that in order to sit
<br>down, a bottle will have to be purchased. If the bottle is not <br>emptied on the first night it will be kept in the club, for the <br>customer for the next time he comes in. The next time they will <br>not be required to buy a new bottle. The hostess may also be
<br>offered a drink from this bottle. Whatever the hostess eats or <br>drinks, the customer will be charged. It is an unsaid rule that <br>the hostess must also drink. If the customer does not offer, <br>then the hostess will say that she is thirsty, and she might even
<br>ask if she could have a drink, but only rarely. It is the point <br>of the hostess club to relax and have fun, so to exclude the <br>hostess in such a way usually never happens. In most snack places<br>you do not have to buy a bottle. Usually the house bottle will be
<br>a whisky, Japanese Suntory whisky is one of the cheaper brands. <br>The price of the same Suntory bottle can differ from club to <br>club. The owner of the club, or 'mama-san' (literally honorable <br>mother) sets the price. The liquor store or distributor sells it
<br>at the same price, but for example at the first hostess club I <br>worked at, which really could almost be called a snack bar, <br>sold their house bottle at JPY 8,000. And the cost of sitting <br>down per person was JPY6,000.
<br><br>Who are the hostesses?<br><br>There are two basic types of girls who work at <br>hostess clubs, the first would be the part-time worker, and the <br>second would be the career worker. Mainly the type of girls that
<br>would work part-time would be college students, who were at <br>school during the day and could only work at night. The draw of <br>hostessing for these girls would be the large amount of money <br>they could make in a short amount of time, leaving plenty of time
<br>for studying and other activities. These girls had set times that<br>they would work until; around 12 o'clock when the last train home<br>was. The career girls would be the ones that would stay after 12 <br>if there were still customers, and maybe go out drinking after
<br>the club closed for the night. These career hostesses only worked<br>as hostesses. Some had children and worked to support them <br>because they had been divorced or they had children out of <br>wedlock. My sempai (senior), or Onesan (older sister) has two
<br>children. She is also divorced. She started hostessing at the <br>club later than most girls. Previously she had owned a restaurant<br>in the Hiroshima area. Other girls were younger, generally in <br>their early twenties.
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URL: <a href="http://www.hirata-group.co.jp/">http://www.hirata-group.co.jp/</a><br><br>-----------------------------------------------------------<br><br>I did not have many opportunities to talk to the girls about <br>their home lives, or what they did outside of work. That was
<br>never discussed, and was treated as rude if it was brought up. <br>Boyfriend talk was strictly prohibited, and I learned the hard <br>way that you don't talk about your boyfriend, if you have one, <br>at work. You were always supposed to say that you did not have
<br>one. I had a lot of trouble with this, as I am not a very good <br>liar. I lost one of the best customers the high end club ever <br>had. He was a rich businessman who would come to the club for <br>about 1 hour and spend over JPY100,000, and then he would go to
<br>another club. He would repeat this process several times a night <br>and frequent Kitashinchi every weekend. The first time I met him,<br>he took and instant liking to me, and I him. He is very robust <br>and outlandish, more so than most Japanese men I met at the
<br>club. He was fun to be around, especially after talking to <br>lawyers all evening. He would take me on his Kitashinchi rounds<br>as well, showing me off to the other hostess clubs. He always <br>requested me. But then after drinking for 7 hours, and he was the
<br>only customer in the club, I told him I needed to leave. He <br>couldn't understand why I would want to be anywhere else when we <br>were on our 4th bottle of Dom Perignon and having a great time. <br>My boyfriend was waiting for me in the car to drive me home. He
<br>had been waiting for over 2 hours, and I thought he was going to <br>gut me. That's when I made a decision between being a hostess <br>and not being a hostess. I told the customer I had to meet my <br>boyfriend. Up until that moment I had never seen such a look of
<br>disappointment and disgust. He told me that as a hostess I should<br>never say I have a boyfriend. I had broken the cardinal rule of <br>hostessing. He let me leave, but he never came back to the club <br>while I was there. With him, although he may not have even had
<br>any wish to move our relationship to a sexual level, once the <br>possibility was eliminated, so was the point.<br><br>Hostesses and snack girls are as a rule not prostitutes. They <br>do not sell anything other than their smile and their time.
<br>However, the lines do blur at some point. It is interesting<br>that in Japan, men may tolerate their wives or girlfriends<br>working in the 'water business.' More still, that wives or <br>girlfriends tolerate their husbands or boyfriends going to
<br>hostess clubs or snack bars. From my experiences of working in<br>the industry, I can say that I have a respect for my former co-<br>workers and that the social ritual of the hostess club should not<br>be judged without an understanding of the context in which it
<br>exists. For some, hostessing is a career, for others is just a <br>part-time or temporary way of paying the billls and having some<br>fun. You never, know, one of your female colleagues at work in <br>Japan may have even been through this herself.
<br><br>By 'June'<br><br>If you have a question or a comment to make, please visit <br><a href="http://www.japaninc.com/jin429">www.japaninc.com/jin429</a> and post it at the bottom of the web<br>version of this article.<br>
<br>-----------------------------------------------------------<br><br>Japan's First Family Social Network is here! <a href="http://www.piqniq.jp">www.piqniq.jp</a><br><br>Are you raising a family in Japan? Do you speak English?
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<br><br>++EVENTS<br>-----------------------------------------------------------<br>Start a Company in Japan<br><br>Entrepreneur's Handbook Seminar 6th of October, 2007<br><br>If you have been considering setting up your own company,
<br>find out what it takes to make it successful.<br>Terrie Lloyd, founder of over 13 start-up companies in Japan,<br>will be giving an English-language seminar and Q and A on<br>starting up a company in Japan.<br>This is an ideal opportunity to find out what is involved,
<br>and to ask specific questions that are not normally answered<br>in business books.<br>All materials are in English and are Japan-focused.<br><br>For more details: <a href="http://japaninc.com/terrie_lloyd/">http://japaninc.com/terrie_lloyd/
</a><br>-----------------------------------------------------------<br>RidgeRunner Niseko<br>International Cricket Competition 15-17 September 2007<br><br>This is your invitation to three days of fun at an<br>international cricket tournament in Niseko being held to
<br>the benefit of the Tyler Foundation for Childhood Cancer.<br><br>Cricketing legend Dennis Lillee will be attending the event<br>which is being co-hosted by the Higashiyama Prince Hotel and<br>includes two days of cricket, a golf match and charity
<br>dinner dance and auction.<br><br>For more information, and the chance to win a<br>dinner with Dennis,<br>please visit <a href="http://www.ridgerunner.jp/cricket">www.ridgerunner.jp/cricket</a><br>or contact Simon Jackson
<br>(<a href="mailto:simon@rad-development.com">simon@rad-development.com</a>, 011-876-3704)<br>-----------------------------------------------------------<br>Entrepreneur Association of Tokyo - Tuesday, September 4th<br>
<br>Speaker: Patrick Newell - Co-founder and Vision Navigator<br>of the Tokyo International School<br><br>September's seminar will take you to Tokyo International<br>school to witness first-hand the entrepreneurialism and
<br>creativity to be found at one of Tokyo's and the world's<br>leading international schools.<br><br>Patrick will share how he has realized his dreams during<br>the past 10 years, his learning model valid for any
<br>organization, vision for schools during the next 10 years<br>and how the collaborative spirit of Wikinomics is changing<br>how corporations, industries and communities.<br><br>Date/Time: Tuesday, September 4th - 7:00 pm
<br>Location: Tokyo International School<br>Language: English<br>Website: <a href="http://www.ea-tokyo.com">http://www.ea-tokyo.com</a><br>Email: <a href="mailto:info@ea-tokyo.com">info@ea-tokyo.com</a><br>-----------------------------------------------------------
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