By WILLIAM HOLLINGWORTHLONDON (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.
why can;t I get my comments to post? fuck fuck fuck
Posted by: Meg Moran | July 06, 2007 at 12:48 PM
Recently when I was back in Australia I picked up a high-circulation fashion magazine where the "journalist" wrote about Japanese women and sex. They claimed that many women here are paying men for sex so that they can loose their virginity. They also claimed that most Japanese women walk the streets with oversized grandma undies hanging out over their skirts in order to attract men! What the??? It was just such crap! Then to support their claims of how perverted they thought the Japanese were, they went on about love hotels and referred to them as brothels.
I think foreign publications love to portray Japan as a sick, twisted perverted place and they really need to get their facts straight.
Love your blog by the way!
Posted by: Melanie | July 10, 2007 at 09:33 PM
Actually, if you reread your post, you really are trying to defend hostess culture, mostly by claiming that the 'dark side' of it isn't hostessing at all, but in truth as long as there are hostesses, there will always be women who cross the line for more money while hoping that their boss won't find out, or places where being a 'hostess' has several levels of meaning. You may have worked in place where the management never expected you to have sex with a customer, but you're surely not trying to claim that after you talked with him, flirted with him, and filled him with alcohol (and it's not like it takes a lot to get a j-guy drunk) that you never had a customer who did? And you may never have taken an offer, but do you seriously not know any woman who did, or was seriously tempted to? If so, your experience is pretty different to other women I know who've worked in that industry. My point is that I know there are legitimate hostess bars where the women ONLY hostess, but it's definitely an industry that lends itself to a more skeazy side emerging for one kind of hostess to provide what the others don't. And those women being called hostesses as well, is kind of inevitable. The paper should have given a balanced report and acknowledged properly that the places turning Morgan down were probably also providing better, safer working conditions, but their warnings aren't completely unfounded - not as long as there are women without the right kind of visa that might make a stupid decision if they're aren't aware of just how bad parts of the hostessing world are.
Posted by: chosha | July 14, 2007 at 08:56 AM
Hiya, I noticed how you mentioned about the reputable hostess bars. I have been offered so many jobs and told so many stories, but I've had quite a few encounters in Japan already and I know I can take care of myself. However I would really appreciate it if you could recommend some classier places, I dont want to end up like the woman in this article haha. Love the blog by the way, great to finally see some positive perspective on hostessing!
Posted by: Jem | January 28, 2008 at 12:49 PM