Flashback to August: I was out drinking with my Japanese boss in Kobe. It was his way of apologising for getting me to come into work during my summer vacation in order to help with a foreign exhange program. I wasn’t bothered: three hours work, and now I was being treated to lots of expensive raw fish and as much beer and sake as I wanted to drink. Since it was all on expenses anyway, there was no reason to hold back, and I didn’t. We were having a pretty good time, and two or so hours flew by.
We left the reastaurant, me ready to wend my wobbly way home but my boss was having nothing of it: he was up for more, and whether I wanted to or not, I was coming along for the ride. More free food, more free beer – I didn’t put up too much of a fight.
Anyway, we ended up in a hostess bar. Not my idea, but since I wasn’t paying (wasn’t and indeed couldn’t) I didn’t have much say in the matter. Hostess bars seem to be pretty big business in Japan. You finish your hard day at the company, go for a few beers, and with the wife and kids at home, Japanese guys take off to the hostess bar. Usually these consist of a lounge-type bar, where you sit with your drinks and your buddies and are kept company by hostesses – young, becoming women who pour your drinks, sing duets with you on the karaoke machine and flirt and add general chit-chat to make the night more enjoyable. And that’s it. Not nearly as dodgy as some may think. Even so, just for a little flirting and chit-chat, it adds a huge whack to the bill to be thus entertained. Our hostesses were Japanese, meaning that the establishment was quite classy (and expensive) – the cheaper establishments apparently rely on Filipina or Thai ladies.
I suppose that the hostess bar is really just a modern iteration of the geisha establishments of older times. The geisha would pour drinks, make conversation, and sing or play a musical instrument to amuse their patrons. The hostess bar is just a racier version of that.
I suppose it might sound quite sordid, but is in fact incredibly tame – you talk, you sing, you drink and then go home. Having paid a lot for your company. One of the girls asked if we had hostess bars in England, and I had to say no. It’s a weird feeling, for me anyway, to talk to someone for whose company I (or rather my boss) is paying. Coming from a culture where it’s not unreasonable to strike up conversation with unknown people in bars and enjoy their company for a while without having to pay cash to do so, it’s a pretty strange feeling to shell out for the privilege. Though it was fun to seem so captivating, it lost its lutre when I reminded myself that I was only as amusing and interesting as my boss’ money was allowing me to be!
Posted by mostlyrawfish 