Job Discussion Forums

[taikibansei]

Nightsintodreams,



Trust me, I've been applying...only, the local snack bars keep saying that I'm "too tall," my Adam's apple "too pronounced," my voice "too deep," and most importantly, that my "hairy legs don't look good at all in a miniskirt."

Personally, I think it must be, um, discrimination. Yeah, that's the ticket! I'd better get a lawyer....

[2buckets]

taikibansei:

I am a male. I was on a tourist visa, so yes, was working illegally, but trips to Korea got me a new visa every few months.

The club was a new venture and only had male hosts, the first in Japan, though there were three other clubs in the building that had hostesses, western and Japanese.

The idea was to make English conversation with the businessmen in a very relaxed atmosphere and it was very successful.

The businessmen who frequented this club were top level and apparently had time for trips. The trips were business oriented and foreign businessmen also attended.

Private tutoring involved meeting (the club customers) at a restaurant or some other venue and discussing business issues, usually based on articles about the economy from Newsweek and Time magazine.

It was a great model for me.

I was wintering in Goa, India and friends had been to Japan the previous year. They gave me the name of the club, the name of a cheap guest house to stay at, the tram stop where it was, (Funa oka korum, near the Dai Toko ji temple in north Kyoto). On the plane from Hong Kong I sat with a Japanese man who insisted I take the Bullet train to Kyoto from Tokyo. He paid for the ticket, which I converted to a cheap, slow overnight train and pocketed the difference in cash, and I was on my way. GF got a job the next day, at the "Birdcage", a club with only western women in the same building. I did do some teaching in Osaka (On Time Corp.) for a few weeks, but when the "Host" club opened up, I went with that. More lucrative and no long commute to Osaka.

This was some years ago when the Japanese economy was booming. It was a perfect storm of circumstances that probably wouldn't occur today.

I am a fully qualified ESL teacher as well as holding a teaching license from New York city. After Japan, I taught in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.

[taikibansei]

Here's a quick rundown on life in Japan (so you don't embarrass yourself in your next attempt to troll):

1) Tips are not given in Japan (except if you are working as a hostess in a snack bar or soap). Accordingly, there was no way you were receiving 20,000 yen "in tips" (your words) a night...unless this was a gay snack bar and they were tipping for your "companionship" as well.

2) You are saying now that you came to Japan in the 1980s boom years? I was in Japan at that time. More and more curious--e.g., ignoring the improbability of some stranger buying you a shinkansen ticket on a whim, how did you find out how to convert that shinkansen ticket to "a cheap, slow overnight train" in the brief window of time you would have had to do this and pocket that cash? See, almost nobody spoke English back then, even in Tokyo Station. Moreover, you would have had to complete this transaction before your shinkansen was scheduled to leave in order to have received the full difference in cash...we're talking about one hour, more or less. Good luck with that back then without Japanese skills!

3) How did you explain your frequent trips to Korea, followed by quick returns (and extensive stays) to Japan? After the second time doing this, your explanations to Immigration must have been quite...interesting. Please do share!

4) By the way, I was living in Kyoto around the time you said. Guys (especially rich guys) were not paying lots of money just to hang out at nights in a bar and talk English with foreign dudes. Sorry. Just so you know, at that time, there were a huge amount of Eikaiwa schools in Kyoto offering night classes for almost nothing. There were also a number of organizations offering "kokusai kouryuu" opportunities at night and on weekends--for far less than what you say you were getting. Finally, there were also hostess bars with hot foreign women who were quite willing to "speak English" for far less than you were charging....

5) My qualifications far exceed yours, and I got to know some very rich people in Kyoto--many of whom I still consider friends. The Kyoto lifestyle you refer to did not exist. E.g., again, most Japanese businessmen did not (do not) go yachting on "the Inland Sea" (Lake Biwa?) or take multiple skiing trips to Hokkaido--even for business. Regarding the former, nobody did it--yachting was not a big thing in this country, with the Japan Sailing Federation getting started only in 1999. And as for the latter, leaving Kyoto to go skiing in Hokkaido back then (1980s) would have been a challenging trip indeed, particularly as few people in Kyoto could ski (and knew about the good Hokkaido snow).

5) The term is "gaijin," not "geijin"...unless by this you mean to share something with regards to point #1. If so, good for you!

Best,

Taikibansei

[TokyoLiz]

One of my Canadian girlfriends, during the bubble, made huge amounts of money in hostess clubs. Guys asked her to takboe her top off, and they handed her wads of ¥10,000 bills. She wears an A cup bra. The tips were on top of her regular commission. She rejected many clients who wanted to do out calls, but her colleagues would make huge money on so-called dates with clients outside the club. She was also hopping in and out of Japan on tourist visas.

I was working in a Vancouver ESL school during the Japan bubble years. Students would drop hundreds of dollars on ski wear and equipment, and after their trips, leave all in their hotel rooms, which staff would take home as lucky tips. Lots of Japanese were ski crazy then. My Guy's brother has been skiing in the region for 40 years.

I met a foreign guy a few years ago while working a short teaching assignment. He had also made huge money working in host bars. He is a super cute gay guy, blond and blue eyed. His tales were much the same as 2 buckets.

Is 2 buckets referring to the Seto Inland Sea? It was a huge boating area when I was there in 1999. I was in Shikoku just before the Bridge system was completed.

My quibble is "Funa oka korum". Korum? What is he taking about?

[taikibansei]

[Lamarr]

As soon as this person said they rocked up in Japan with $10 and left a year later with $20,000, my immediate impression was that they had a very over-romanticized, "tall story" with which to back it up. I wasn't disappointed.

People sometimes do this with their travelling experiences. There's nothing like a good, romantic travel yarn (with lots of rosy-tinted exaggerated facts and spin) to impress new acquaintances with, and make yourself feel wonderful, even if the reality was very different.

[2buckets]

First of all, do a search of my previous posts, (mostly in Saudi, UAE and other Middle East forums). It should be clear that I'm not a Troll.

I arrived in Japan in March, 1973 on a multiple entry visa issued in Vientiane, Laos. Did get a couple of extensions in Osaka.

I never said 1980s, that was your assumption. (The clue might have been that I worked in Iran after Japan, that was not possible after November, 1979, therefore I must have been in Japan in the 70s).

No, not gay.

Be that as it may, everything I've written is true. It's your decision to believe or not believe.

I'm not going to do an endless back and forth.

End of discussion on my part.

BTW, Thanks TokyoLiz for clueing some of us in on some things not commonly known.
"Funa oka korum" was the tram stop near a public park by that name. That's where the guest house was located.
Yes, Seto Inland Sea.

[Lamarr]

I'm sure your experience, in your mind anyway, was wonderful and elevates you over and above the common herd slaving away in the trenches, perhaps cancelling out other experiences in your life that weren't so rosy. Though with the passage of time, your memory and impressions of it may well have altered, to suit some need for a nice, comforting story from an earlier, youthful, carefree period of your life (or just plain old self-aggrandizement).

There are plenty of reports of people who made a LOT of money out of English teaching (and I'm sure, hosting/hostessing) back in the 80s before the bubble burst. It wasn't uncommon or difficult to do that back then so it's nothing to be particularly proud of.

Not too sure why anyone would be jealous of working in a host bar, mingling with hostesses, skiing in Hokkaido and sailing on the Inland Sea. That's all fairly routine stuff, but anyway, glad you enjoyed yourself.

[taikibansei]

[taikibansei]

[Lamarr]

[TokyoLiz]

I wasn't implying anything about 2Buckets' sexual orientation. Rather, the clienteles' appetite for the exotic. Mizushobai has so many expressions, and doesn't fit the western model of the sex trade. Japanese high rollers pay for all kinds of things. High heeled women ruining tatami and such perversions.

What I was asking was, what's he mean by koramu? The word in Japanese means column, as in magazine or newspaper article.

Perhaps 2 buckets misremembers his wild years, gaijing, koramu and all. But even if a fraction of it is embroidery, it sounds like he had an adventure.

[taikibansei]

[Lamarr]

I just think it's a bit strange to have a nightclub/host bar advertised as a place where Japanese businessmen can speak English with Western men. Women I could understand, but not men. Gayness is still a bit of a taboo in the Japanese corporate world.

I'm wondering whether this place was really not so much a nightclub/host bar, but more like a regular bar or izakaya, an "eikaiwa bar" (I've thought before that that might be a viable concept). I presume they only hired men in order to make it more "serious" for the clients, rather than having them get distracted with flirtatious conversation with beautiful, blonde-haired women, or staring at and drooling over their extremely large boobs.

[taikibansei]