I don't know why I bother reading this stuff anymore. Then again, it was my general disgust at the western media's depiction of Tokyo Hostess bars that got me off my ass to write my book proposal in the first place. Here is only the latest article that pissed me off. I chop it up and serve it to you raw and cold, my dear readers ...(all three of you).
By WILLIAM HOLLINGWORTH
LONDON (Kyodo) Dangers still lurk for foreign women who work as hostesses in Japan's nightlife districts, despite claims of better regulation in the wake of the Lucie Blackman slaying, according to an international security consultant who recently investigated the nightclub scene.
The consultant, Dai Davies, found that bars in Tokyo still employ young foreign women without proper working visas, as in Blackman's case, leaving them less likely to complain to police if assaulted by clients because they are working illegally.
Davies aided undercover Welsh TV reporter Sian Morgan, who was making a documentary posing as a British hostess without a working visa.
He said some of the bars were nothing more than "brothels."
. . . Morgan, who wore a blonde wig to boost her chances of finding work, was initially turned down by several bars because she only had a three-month tourist visa.
However, she eventually landed a hostess job at a bar, where she was told to change her name. . . Hostess bars regularly deny that hostesses engage in prostitution. Nonetheless, Morgan was told she could make much more money by having sex with the clients.
Ok people, this is what most likely happened here: Our Intrepid Reporter tried to find work at a decent hostess bar in a decent neighborhood, but all of these establishments turned her down because of her tourist visa (if not because she looked like a man in a blond wig). Regulations for working in such bars have become much stricter since the 2004 crackdown on illegal immigration to Japan. In the wake of these new laws, many hostess bars in Roppongi and Ginza were raided by immigration officials. (They were mainly looking to send home Russian and Philippine women who were illegal; the change in policy itself had little to do with the Blackman murder in 2000) .
Alas, getting turned down for not having a visa does not make for a very good story. So I'm guessing that our undercover hostess stopped searching for work in Ginza or Roppongi (where the REAL hostess bars are) and went to Kinshicho or Kabukicho, where club owners will lie to prospective employees- claiming that their establishments are "hostess bars"- in order to lure women into a career in prostitution or exotic dancing. Not many fall for that trick anymore. Unless, of course, you are as unfamiliar with the streets as Our Intrepid Reporter, who found herself working in "no more than a brothel."
If this were a real hostess bar, no one would have ever suggested sex with a customer. The attitude of the above manager (who 'promised much more money for having sex with clients') describes is that of a brothel owner, and only that. A real hostess would get fired if it was found out that she'd ever slept with a client. I'm only going to say this once: real hostess bars DO NOT SELL SEX.
Davies is also quoted as follows:
"My advice to any foreign girl thinking about becoming a hostess is: 'Don't even go there.' Things are no better than when Lucie Blackman was working in Tokyo," he said.
Ok Davies, hostesses are typically in their mid-twenties, support themselves financially, and often have children whom they provide for as well. I do believe this is grounds for you to use a pronoun that does not classify them as children. Any actual "girl" (under the legal age of 18, that is) who is thinking about moving to Japan to become a hostess, most likely has a lot more issues already than those she might encounter on her own in Tokyo.
Yet infantilizing the nightclub hostess is an integral part of the "rescue fantasy".
A lot is said about "bright-eyed," "ignorant," and "vulnerable," young foreign women who find themselves working the Tokyo hostess circuit, and this is basically bullshit. We are fully aware that hostessing can be dangerous. We've followed the Lucie Blackman murder trial closely and each of us has our own relationship to the case. The public however, seems unprepared to comprehend the fact that most foreign hostesses in Tokyo have considered these dangers and made informed decisions - for varying personal reasons- to work in the industry anyway. We are not "damsels in distress," and we neither need nor want to be rescued by the masculine media's white horse.
The last paragraph reads:
Blackman vanished in summer 2000 after going on a date with a client she met in a Tokyo hostess bar. She was later found dead. Tokyo businessman Joji Obara, a convicted serial rapist and killer, was recently cleared of her murder.
It's curious that the final paragraph neglects to mention that two months ago, Obara was sentenced to life imprisonment for other related counts against him. A monster has recently been taken off of the streets of Roppongi, yet this is not newsworthy.
Goddess knows I am not trying to defend hostess culture or minimize Lucie Blackman's tragic death. I merely point out the fact that the above article is most suitable for wiping my former-hostess ass.
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