a phenomenally educational night out

this weekend, a bunch of us JET girls finally went out and did what we’d been wanting to do for the longest time – visit a host club!

you see hosts all the time in shinsaibashi and namba (among other places), especially on the dotonburi bridge. however, i think most of us were interested in learning more about hosts, or experiencing what goes on in the host trade, after we watched The Great Happiness Space.

i’d blogged about it long ago here, and i think everyone should watch that show. our experience wasn’t quite as exciting as i’d hoped it would be though, as i think the hosts were intimidated by our foreignness – they knew very little english – and perhaps the size of our group (there were 6 of us).

below, slightly to the left, you can see some hosts plying their trade:

 

they didn’t really flirt or chat nonsense with us that much, although one of us – who knew very little japanese – ended up being next to a host who’d had non-japanese customers before but spoke hardly any english: for most of the time he whispered in her ear that she’s very beautiful, and she’d actually found that quite flattering even though she’s completely aware that he’s saying it only to make her feel good!

i just took the chance to badger my host with lots of questions; he was really forthcoming with information, and i learned a lot in that 1 hour we had there.

1. go out late, but not too late. the hosts whom we met work 2 shifts: their night shift starts from either 4 or 6pm (can’t remember) and ends at 1am, so you have to enter their club by 11pm if you want 2 hours of their time. their morning shift starts between 6 and 8am and ends several hours later. there’re certainly other clubs that operate beyond 1am – there were so many hanging around when we left the club – but it all depends. our hosts work 6 days a week and rest only on wednesday when the club is closed.

2. don’t play the gaijin card too strongly. we walked up and down the dotonburi bridge checking out the hosts – lots of them arent too impressive by our standards, with the standard host ‘look’ comprising sallow complexion; big, golden-brown, styled to ‘perfection’ hair; tight, skinny pants revealing their very thin physique; pointy shoes; and extremely average looks.

we chanced upon a bunch that looked quite good; here’s 2 of our party below trying to negotiate a deal - note the cutie to the far left. the girl on the right knows very little japanese and she was trying to ask them if they could speak english and so on; what resulted was a longish phonecall between one of the hosts and their club, trying to check if we could go there – they said that they were just checking if there was space, but we suspect that they were just quite concerned about the language barrier, judging by their expressions.

3. it’s ok in osaka to be a host with some teeth missing. before we arrived at namba, a friend recounted her tale of being approached by a host who was missing about 3 front teeth – lo and behold, we did spot one on the bridge who didn’t have all his teeth either. it turns out that in osaka, the selling point of hosts is their gift of the gab. in kyushu, it’s their ability to hold down their drink, and in tokyo it’s their looks. apparently the top host (hosts?) in namba is really ugly (めっちゃぶっさい) but can talk really well.

4. hosts can earn negative amounts of money. yes – they might rake in millions of yen each a week, but if they don’t manage to pull in customers, their salary can go into the negative. by the way, part of their job is to accompany customers to the toilet – they wait outside till you’re done, and hand you a warm towel to clean your hands (which ought to have been washed!).

5. if you want to spend less, lower the host to customer ratio. charges at a host club work something like this. the customers are levied a seating a charge – something like 1000yen per hour for unlimited drinks – but pay for their hosts’ drinks, which start from about 1000yen for a beer to 500,000yen for an expensive bottle of champagne. the cost of the beer sounds okay – until you discover that the cans are half the size of normal ones but double the price. but naturally, given the cost of champagne, it’s unanimously the favourite drink among hosts.

6. hosts’ birthdays are the most lucrative nights. one of the hosts at the club we visited will be celebrating his birthday on the 17th of may; apparently it’s gonna be a huge money-making night. on that day, all the hosts will encourage their respective customers to buy the birthday boy champagne, with will be poured into a pyramid of glasses and drunk. this particular club is busiest on sundays too, as that’s when some of the other clubs in the area are closed.

7. “i love money, and i love drinking”. that’s what i was told when i asked the hosts what made them go into this trade. one of them even had a collar pin stating “i love money”. our hosts were fairly young: 20, 22, 23, 24, 27; the oldest guy has been a host for 7 years, the youngest for half a year and another two started only about 2 months ago. here’s them and 2 of us:

8. you don’t have to be of legal drinking age to be a host. which is interesting, given that drinking is a significant aspect of the job. the legal drinking age in japan is 20 years old, but you can start in the this business from 18 years old. all that happens is customers can only buy them juice or mocktails, which i assume just translates into a lower income for these guys.

9. hosts don’t always style their own hair. like i’ve mentioned before, one of the defining traits of a host is his hair.

 

(i found this really cool picture of 2 hosts in osaka here).

some hosts might style their own hair – like the cutie we had who takes 20 to 30min each day to style his short crop in a simple looking fashion, but this host below goes to the salon every single day to get his hair done. it takes 30min! it does help explain how some of them can get those outrageous hairdos, because doing your hair requires lots of arm strength – trust me, i’m a girl.

10. the busiest time of day is at 8AM. yes, you read that right – 8 in the morning is when the club is busiest. i was really surprised to learn that, but it made sense when they explained that’s when all the girls in the cabaret clubs and sex industry in the surrounding area get off work. the Great Happiness Space explains that most of their clients are in a similar trade themselves. but wow – i would never have reached that conclusion on my own, as 8am hardly registers as a time for drinking, chatting and having fun.

 

* * * * *

our night didn’t end there. we were ushered out of the club and into the lift with one host to press the lift buttons, while the rest took the stairs and welcomed us with cheers when the doors opened at ground level (the reverse happened when we were brought there). there were still lots of people about – other hosts looking at us, and random bystanders with interested gazes on our gaijin party – and we headed back to the dotonburi bridge to plan our next move and discuss what we’d learned.

within the 10min we were there, we had:

• a norwegian tourist who tried to chat us up - “Where are you all from?”, “We’re from all around.”, “Oh, your country is all around!” *roll eyes* – by first asking if we spoke english, even though we were talking SO loudly in our native language. he thought we were fellow tourists and invited us to go to Sam and Daves – as if; you head there if you want to pick up people or be picked up. puhleeze.
• this japanese guy and his friend who wondered if we’d like to have more drinks in umeda. i’m not sure what his plan was, cos his pickup line was “Oh, we were thinking of going home, but we saw you all and we’re really interested in making foreign friends”, but when we suggested we drink in the namba area gave us his number and said they had to go home. but that was not before he singled one of us out and said that she’s really cute. :)

we were gonna head to one of the gaijin bars for more drinks after that – having spent enough on paid entertainment for the night – when we were stopped by this guy in plain clothes on a corner along the Shinsaibashi shotengai. He used whatever English he had (which was a fair bit, actually) to convince us to go to his establishment; he promised us dancing (“all types: reggae, hiphop, Japanese”), comedy and free drinks for all of 1000yen until 5am. unbelievable! we were suspicious, but extremely curious, and after confirming and reconfirming several times that we were only going to part with 1000yen and nothing more, followed his lead.

he definitely beat the host boys in his willingness to chat with us, his english skills and his energy level – he was talking all the way right up to his establishment, which was off the first left turn from Shinsaibashi station. this is the only picture i have of the night there – photos and mobile phones werent allowed in there; Aran Doron is its name.

see, i’ve known that there’re tonnes of night establishments in japan and especially Osaka, but i never really knew what they were but just assumed they were some kind of karaoke bars, general pubs/clubs and so on. but i never would have imagined what we were in for. we paid the money up front at the counter, and were escorted in – there were about 20 tables, all occupied by between 1 to 4 women.

it was a lot like a host club, with some significant differences. the staff were all men – with the exception of the female cashier cum music controller – they ranged in age, with most in their twenties to a few 30-somethings and one who was very definitely well into his 40s or beyond. it was nowhere as classy or polished as a host club – the place was older, the guys were dressed more casually and had a more relaxed air about them. they also took turns rotating around the tables - at least 5 of them took turns talking to us; chatting for a bit, then leaving, and the next guy would come over a short time later – those who didnt stop to chat still nodded and smiled at us.

it was a pity that we didnt get to talk to any of them for a long enough stretch. we never got much beyond the formalities and they seem to have really colourful characters and i wanted to know so much more! one of the guys is 29 years old and looks younger than me; he had been in the army for 4 years prior to this, but quit because he wanted to be a comedian. another guy had a very pretty face and beautiful curls; he’d previously met some australian english teachers who taught him terrible phrases like “suck my ass” (kiss my ass?), “fuck off you c*nt” and “show me your nipples” – seriously, who the hell teachers others such words so irresponsibly too? another guy was really pale and had more makeup on than any of us – mascara, eyeshadow, foundation and powder – and dyed ginger hair; he apparently is a singer in a rock band and has lived in england – and will be going there again soon – even though he doesnt know much english.

what went on in there was very intriguing too. we’d originally thought that it would be like a club where patrons can dance, but it turned out to be the “hosts” who were the performers. their “Showtime” lasted 40min and comprised groups of them – from 2 to 8 – performing different dancing segments (as promised, they danced to among others, r&b, hiphop and japanese songs) as well as some comedy pieces. i didnt get much of the comedy as my japanese isnt good enough and lots make use of specific cultural or pop culture references.

the other girls found the dance segments very bizzare – the performers went through so many costume changes and danced to so many pieces; there were glittery outfits, strobe lights, fake smoke, etc – and they’d never seen anything like that before. according to them, even tacky boyband videos couldnt compare, even though it might be the closest thing to this they’d seen.

for me, the dance segments reminded me of what background dancers accompanying singers on PSC night (赢万金，游万里，欢乐周末夜) some 12 to 20 years ago used to be like. kinda like you never really knew what they were doing there, and what they did wasnt always related to the song that’s being sung or even the mood of it.

the dancing also seemed like what my friend termed a reverse Takarazuka at some points. one particular dance segment featured old japanese music. men dressed in casual kimonos, carrying a lantern and wearing a tanuki (fox) mask stage-walked their way on stage to the music. then, a kimono-clad woman started dancing in (‘she’ was actually the heavily made-up guy); she was carrying a red parasol too. a while later, this samurai-like guy came on stage and started dancing – with some definitely ballroom-like moves – with another kimono-clad woman, who was of course, one of the other guys – the pretty boy in fact.

there was also a segment that reminded me of one ballet that i’d seen which was set in europe (perhaps italy) and featured a masked clown, as 2 characters in that dance had a similar mask, and the segment appeared to be some sort of expression on the dead being escorted down to Hades. there was also a fairytale/musical box piece with a prince, princess and tin soldiers. it was all very very weird!

who are these people and what made them work here? and how does this place, Aran Doron, work? we only paid 1000yen – perhaps because we were first-timers – but the women just sit there and watch the performance, during with you’re requested not to chat among yourselves and arent able to order drinks or food. they have several performances in a night; the guys attend to the customers in between shows, although not all of them there performed. are there other places like this in Osaka, and how many of them are there? what would make a person go there? the entertainment, while watchable, is nowhere near being top-notch, and i’d personally like to be able to chat and walk around and dance if i want to.

it’s all very curious, but a most interesting experience!