Tokyo Girls | Escort Service In Tokyo
Being a hostess in Tokyo is really not that simple. At least Director Penelope Buitenhuis claims that through the tale of four hostesses in her documentary Tokyo Girls. Throughout this emotionally ambiguous film, a sense of complexity and complicity becomes evident, and straight lines become blurred.
At first, it seems Buitenhuis is simply giving you a first-hand look at how working as a hostess in Tokyo is a 'more economical spin-off' of Geisha culture. It seems to be another option women use to achieve financial freedom. The interviews, for example, explore the reasons these foreign women choose such an unorthodox career. Each hostess describes her job as easy, entertaining, and rewarding. Their job, it seems, is a dream come true for them.
But soon, the scene and the story shifts. Like a Barbie doll cut-outs, they hover over expensive cars, glitter in the middle of the street and on the sidewalk, and don't fit anywhere. They begin to recount experiences that are now more reminiscent of nightmares, rather than dreams. The dreams have given way to a 'twilight zone' where nothing is as simple, and straightforward as it seems.
At first, it seems Buitenhuis is simply giving you a first-hand look at how working as a hostess in Tokyo is a 'more economical spin-off' of Geisha culture. It seems to be another option women use to achieve financial freedom. The interviews, for example, explore the reasons these foreign women choose such an unorthodox career. Each hostess describes her job as easy, entertaining, and rewarding. Their job, it seems, is a dream come true for them.
But soon, the scene and the story shifts. Like a Barbie doll cut-outs, they hover over expensive cars, glitter in the middle of the street and on the sidewalk, and don't fit anywhere. They begin to recount experiences that are now more reminiscent of nightmares, rather than dreams. The dreams have given way to a 'twilight zone' where nothing is as simple, and straightforward as it seems.
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TVTranscript
00:00There are so
00:29many different kinds of foreign hostesses. I know women who were lawyers and came over
00:34for a break. I know girls who were in Bangkok on the hippie trail and they came over to
00:40make some other money. It's such a broad spectrum, the girls who are over there. The only thing
00:45that brings them over there is money. The only reason I came to hostess in Japan was
00:58to pay off my debts, my student loan and credit card debts. I mean, I could have done
01:04it in Canada, but it probably would have taken me over a year working maybe two jobs.
01:09I was really naive and didn't really realize that hostessing was something that was going
01:36to affect the rest of my life. I just thought it was great. I couldn't believe that they
01:41were paying me to drink and party and just sit around and talk to people. I thought it
01:45was just fabulous.
02:15I had culture shock when I first got to Tokyo, just because of all the crowds everywhere,
02:33all the people and not being able to walk freely on the sidewalk and having to kind
02:38of dodge people and being squashed into the subways. Basically, the only time you're by
02:45yourself is in the bathroom. My name is Hilary and I'm from Vancouver. I'm 24. I've been
02:54hostessing for six months now. One Eyed Jacks is a hostess club in Tokyo. The club I work
03:02at now, you're making about $210 Canadian dollars a night. We also make money by drinking.
03:11When I first heard about hostessing, I thought, what exactly is that? What do you have to
03:15do kind of thing? It does sound sleazy because it sounds like maybe like an escort or something
03:22like that, that maybe sex is involved or something like that. You don't really know what it is,
03:30now that I've done it. Obviously, it's not sleazy at all. It's just talking. Sometimes,
03:37I can't speak very good English, so it makes it difficult. Well, it's not normal. I mean,
03:49certain men, they're paying to talk to you. It's just strange that if you don't like them,
03:55you can't just get up and walk away. You have to pretend that their conversation is interesting to you.
04:25If the economic status of women increases, there may be fewer people who become hostesses.
04:39Years ago, there were mostly a lot of Asian girls who came to Japan. I think one reason
04:44is like, it's near. Japan is near to these other Asian countries. And now, a lot of foreigners
04:50started to come over, like Americans, Europeans, Canadians, you know, and Russian, too. Of
04:57course, we hired mostly blonde girls. It was a prestige thing. If a Japanese man had a
05:04Western woman, especially a good-looking, tall, blonde one, they were seen by their
05:09peers as possessing something that other people may not be able to have, something different.
05:20When I first started hostessing in about 91, there was a lot of money to be made, and
05:26there weren't a lot of foreign girls there. So clubs hired easily girls like me and paid
05:33well. I could make $1,000 in a night. I was being paid an hourly wage, and then I was
05:39getting tips from the customers, and I was getting bonuses for drinks sold. The customers
05:45were interested in talking to foreigners. Otherwise, they would have gone to a million
05:49other clubs with just Japanese women. I think I learned early on that if the customer believed
05:58that I was interested in him, or if he believed, you know, that he might get somewhere with
06:02me, I got tips more, and I would make more money. Right away, I sort of figured out that
06:07this was the game I was going to play, because that's why I was there. I was there to make
06:11money. But I think for the most part, it was really hard. Coming from the West, we
06:19don't cater to our men like that anymore. It just doesn't happen. So being thrown into
06:24this situation where I was suddenly expected to peel grapes and light cigarettes was completely
06:30different. I think that the hostess industry itself came from an offshoot of the geisha
06:40world. When the customers, they wanted something new, and the hostesses gave them a cheaper
06:45version. The economy geisha, so to speak. It provided similar companionship without
06:52all the frills. And along with that came a cheaper bill at the end of the night.
06:56At all the times I go to work, I get the impression that people can guess that I go to work as
07:15a hostess because I'm white and because I'm very, very, very chic. I know that here in
07:22Japan, it's not a job that's respected. It's an illegal job. So I'd like to go unnoticed.
07:36Well, hostessing is illegal, I guess. You're not supposed to work in Japan where there's
07:41alcohol. So it's not hostessing that's illegal, it's that there's alcohol involved. And it's
07:47night work. Because, I mean, the police could come in at any moment and all the girls would
07:51be probably deported. But it doesn't work like that. It's hush-hush, but everybody knows
07:56about it.
08:00Mizu means water, and shobai means business. So mizu shobai is water business. Water business
08:09we call something related with alcohol. It's not stable like water flow. It's called mizu shobai.
08:22In the mizu shobai, there are a lot of different kinds of clubs, bars that offer different
08:26kinds of transactions. But the realm of sex or sex-related service is often the biggest
08:33connotation. And what distinguishes the hostess is that the medium that she has for interacting
08:40with the customers primarily talk.
08:44I don't think hostessing could happen in Western culture. Because men are really pushy there
08:48and, you know, they want something. They're paying for it, so they should get something
08:52kind of thing.
08:54A hostess, like other mizu shobai women, is obtained by money rather than through romance
09:04or marriage. And mizu shobai women are valued for the way she makes a customer feel. And
09:10since most customers are men, as one customer said, a good hostess makes me feel like a
09:15man. And wives I spoke to would often acknowledge the value and the charms of hostess, even
09:23while differentiating themselves from that kind of woman.
09:31Well, at first, you know, I was kind of shy. I was like, oh, these girls are on stage and,
09:36you know, they don't have tops on and what are they going to think about us? But they
09:42really, everybody really separates it. Like, it's a show time.
09:46There's, like, a definite line between the hostesses and the dancers.
09:55And it is sexual, but I think Japanese culture is a little bit different from Western culture
10:00where, like, that kind of thing is not as taboo as maybe it would be in Canada.
10:07Working in Japan, working in that era and in the hostess clubs, we had a lot of very
10:12powerful men come through, whether it be businessmen or politicians or mafia.
10:18You walk into this life that's dominated by men, so you begin to become attracted to that
10:25because that becomes your reality. Sometimes you became someone and you couldn't separate
10:31yourself from that woman's feelings.
10:34The customer-hostess relationship was one based on falseness. There was nothing, there
10:40was nothing of an emotional bond. It was all fiscal. It was all monetary.
10:47The money that you'd see pulled from pockets would be $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 and that
10:54was what they would spend in one night. I had a lot of problems with doing that and
11:01with trying to understand that it was acceptable.
11:11Most of the family, you know, they don't want the daughter to work at night because
11:16it's not respectable job in Japan. And especially like me, I graduated college and,
11:25you know, I had some degree, so my family really expect me to work daytime to use my career.
11:41Hi!
11:58My name is Nancy Caroline Perron and I'm 27 years old.
12:02My family doesn't know that I'm a hostess here in Japan. They think I'm a waitress
12:14in a restaurant because it's simpler and my parents don't have any anxiety when they
12:20think that I'm just a waitress.
12:25I came here to Japan to study a particular dance, a contemporary dance with Kazuo
12:31Ono, because I didn't have enough money to meet my needs here. I knew that I would
12:39be either a waitress in a restaurant or in a club, or I had heard about the hostess
12:45job which was very easy to get when you're a young white girl. So I started about a month
12:52ago.
12:54Life is very expensive here in Tokyo. It's incredible, but I really need this job. I pay
13:02double for this small room than a big 4.5 or 5.5 in Montreal.
13:09For me, it's a big change in rhythm because I'm a day girl. I wake up at 6 in the morning
13:15in Canada and now I often wake up at noon, 2 in the afternoon. So I don't feel like
13:21living, I just feel like working. So it's a big change in my life.
13:38I travel by bike all the time. I prefer the bike. It's better here in Tokyo because
13:50the subway, there are too many people and I get crazy.
13:57I stop in Gotanda, I put on make-up in a restaurant and after that I'm ready to go
14:03to work in Ginza.
14:08It's the first night that I started working in this job. It's strange because I was seduced
14:23by the femininity. I'm a woman, so I found it seductive, but at the same time I was very
14:31exhausted because I had never smiled so much in my life in four hours. I had never been
14:36so tired when I finished working.
14:44I think I'm quite in demand at my bar where I work because I have the particularity of
14:50speaking French and English. And often businessmen have appointments in France and they like
14:55to say hello in French.
15:00But the hours are long. In simplicity, sometimes it's long.
15:06It's strange for a Canadian woman to just use her charm, to just smile and that's it.
15:24It's very strange.
15:36The history of hostess clubs, as far as I understand it, is they really sprang up after
16:00the war when Japan went through its first burst of economic prosperity which was in
16:04the end of the 60s.
16:09And a lot of people will say that hostess clubs are actually coming on the heels of
16:13a longer tradition of geisha culture.
16:21Although geishas are quite different from hostesses, but the notion of having a place
16:26and a type of woman who will entertain men outside of the home and not really be a port
16:31or an impingement to marriage is something that goes way back to at least the Edo period,
16:351603 to 1868.
16:43From the very first time I saw a geisha, I was just fascinated by them.
16:47I just wanted to keep this image. I know I'm seeing something special, something from the past.
16:54The word geisha itself describes exactly what they are.
16:58The ge meaning art and the sha, person.
17:02So I mean you're looking at an artist.
17:04You know, it's an artist of traditional culture.
17:11Main differences between a hostess and a geisha would be that the geisha has spent her youthful
17:19years training in tea ceremony, maybe shamisen or singing, dancing of course, sometimes poetry,
17:26flower arrangement.
17:34Hostesses, on the other hand, are usually hired on the spot for their looks, their height,
17:39and probably even their bus size.
17:42The price of a night out with a couple of geishas drinking is probably anywhere from
17:48$700 to $800 Canadian.
17:51I'm not doing that every night, but you know, once a month.
17:54I do it because I feel privileged to be able to do it, first of all.
17:58I like to be entertained by someone who has 300 to 400 years of tradition behind them.
18:04It makes you feel special, especially being a foreigner.
18:07So I do my part in helping the tradition on.
18:22In Japan, when we do business, relationship is very important.
18:28So that's why we go to hostess club to make a good relationship with our client.
18:34And of course, every man wants to talk to girls.
19:05It's very difficult to ask my client's honest opinion in the daytime.
19:11We eat dinner together and talk about business.
19:15It's a really serious meeting.
19:18But we drink alcohol.
19:21They start to ask me,
19:24and talk about business.
19:26It's a really serious meeting.
19:29But we drink alcohol.
19:32They start to say something that they can't say in the daytime,
19:38or sometimes it's a secret.
19:40After two hours, I get a lot of information from my client,
19:44and business is over.
19:46I would like to give my clients a nice time after dinner.
19:52A hostess facilitates business transactions in a lot of different ways.
19:57She's the one who ensures that the evening out is going to be fun, memorable,
20:03and achieve its goals, which usually are to make sure a business deal comes through.
20:09And for customers who come in and they're tired,
20:12and they know that they're supposed to be communicating,
20:14a hostess who can simply keep up a stream of conversation,
20:17even though it may not be very profound or very witty,
20:20is respected and really valued for that alone.
20:28Lots of Japanese men go to the alcohol club
20:31because they have too much stress in the office.
20:34They have to work very hard, like a machine,
20:38and even go home.
20:40It's a small room and small apartment,
20:43and wife always expects something from him,
20:46and kids want to play with him.
20:48And too much stress in Japan, especially for the men,
20:52and they cannot get long holiday.
20:54So, you know, even a couple of hours a day,
20:58they can forget about business and family,
21:00talk with hostess, you know, having a good time,
21:03and they come to the club.
21:05And I think wife also knows about it.
21:18I think that's how it is in Japanese society.
21:21Yes, that's right.
21:23If he quits, for example, he can buy me something,
21:26and I allow him to do that.
21:29I understand.
21:38In percentage, 80% of men
21:42lie to their wives.
21:48Japanese men want pleasure of the heart.
21:50They want to have sex with pleasure of the heart.
21:53Call girls can have sex,
21:57but they don't have pleasure of the heart.
22:00Rich men don't want that.
22:04They want to have sex with the one they like,
22:08and spend a lot of money on it,
22:13and then have sex with the one they like.
22:15That's what a hostess is.
22:17I think that's the difference with call girls.
22:30This is the area that we call Kitasinshi.
22:33You can see all clubs, a lot of hostess clubs,
22:37and it's a high-class place in Osaka.
22:41The job of the mama is managing the girls.
22:46You have to make sure that the guests
22:48will have a good time in the club
22:51and make them come back again.
23:01The role of a mama is a sort of a matchmaker
23:04where I figure out which girl
23:07is supposed to sit down with that client.
23:11Whiskey?
23:13Where are you from?
23:15Me, I'm from Canada, Montreal.
23:18A hostess job is a difficult job.
23:23It's adjusting to different kinds of character.
23:27Some guests are very nice, some guests are very rude,
23:31some guests are serious or intelligent,
23:35and you have to make a good conversation.
23:37What are your favorite types of men?
23:41Oh, maybe Japanese men?
23:44Yeah.
23:46Often they tell me,
23:48OK, that's enough, don't talk anymore,
23:50we want to learn English, we don't want to know your opinion.
23:53I never know what to do.
23:55Do I have to be intelligent,
23:57have a lot of conversations, or just smile?
24:00What do they want?
24:02The mentality is very different.
24:05I think they just want me to smile.
24:08Sometimes you can have really good conversations,
24:11and again, you're talking to people
24:13that you probably wouldn't talk to normally,
24:15so you get different perspectives about everything.
24:18What it's like to be a salaryman,
24:21what it's like to live in Japan or be Japanese.
24:24What is your job?
24:26It can be really interesting,
24:28but sometimes it can be really, really boring.
24:31I don't think I could have done it without drinking.
24:34Drinking really loosened everybody up.
24:39By the end of the night,
24:41if they weren't having a good time in the beginning,
24:43they started having a good time
24:45because they were all getting drunk.
24:47I would get a commission on the number of drinks
24:50that I could drink and get the customer to drink.
24:53So really, you sit down for 4 straight hours
24:56and you drink as much as you can.
24:59The secret in the club between the girls
25:02was to do speed in the washroom in between drinks,
25:05and that would allow you to drink more.
25:07So the more you drank, the more you got paid,
25:09the more speed you did,
25:11and it was the beginning of a big, long road of heartache
25:14with alcohol and drugs.
25:21A hostess will tell any man who's a customer
25:24that he's wonderful, charming, handsome,
25:26perfect kind of potential lover, patron.
25:29Why would any man buy this?
25:32They go in part because there might be a chance
25:35that this woman would fall for them.
25:37There are stories of hostesses or mamas
25:39having relationships with customers.
25:41But even more importantly, they like the rush,
25:44they like the attention, it's a big ego boost.
25:48So going to a hostess club where it's guaranteed
25:51that a woman is going to tell you you're wonderful
25:54is really very pleasurable.
26:01Yeah, Western hostesses are like,
26:04I'm doing it for business.
26:06They are very straight.
26:08So maybe I would prefer to go to a Japanese hostess club.
26:14I mean, they know they're paying,
26:16but they think it's a regular club
26:18and that you're actually, you know,
26:20maybe their girlfriend or something like that.
26:23Have you had a Japanese boyfriend?
26:25Have I? No.
26:27Well, I tell them, like, no, you know,
26:29this is my job and this is you.
26:31What you should do is kind of play along
26:34with that fantasy world with them,
26:36because obviously they don't want to be told
26:39that it's your job.
26:41How about you, Japanese boyfriend?
26:45Yes, I am.
26:50I never became a super hostess.
26:52I wasn't able to cater and let go of that side of myself
26:56and become this man's fantasy.
26:59I know she has a boyfriend,
27:01so different age, you know,
27:04and different tall.
27:08I want, like, a private, you know, relationship.
27:13But she not so long stay, you know,
27:16only short time stay and then going back.
27:21A lot of hostesses were attracted to Niko.
27:24Both what he looked like, I think,
27:26and the money that he had.
27:30Yeah, he told me all the time that he was in love with me,
27:33you know, over whiskey or over, you know, some...
27:38I don't know, he'd have some other girl beside him
27:40and she'd go to the bathroom and he'd say,
27:42but I love you, you know, I love you, you're the one I love.
27:45How can you love me? You don't even know me.
27:47He didn't know me.
27:48No, no, no. OK, again.
27:50Dana, I like you. No, no.
27:52OK, next, you know.
27:54At that time, good feeling, you know, challenge feeling.
27:56I like it.
27:58If easy, I think not so strong.
28:05Seeing him come into the club time and time and time again
28:08and I would think to myself,
28:10well, you are this really interesting, nice, congenial person,
28:14yet you've got this deep-seated loneliness, obviously.
28:18Otherwise, why would you be coming here?
28:20That was what turned me off.
28:22That's what I didn't like about him.
28:47I like the Tokyo guys.
28:49Tokyo guys.
28:50You like Tokyo guys, not one Tokyo guy.
28:53Just only one.
28:55And I like it.
28:57But it's still difficult. It's a different mentality.
29:00Often, Japanese men are not nice when you want them to be nice,
29:05when you want them to bring you a little tenderness.
29:09No, it's when he decides.
29:11I stay because I have the impression that he loves me a lot.
29:15He wants to come to Montreal too.
29:17I think it will do him good.
29:24My boyfriend, he doesn't like that I work as a waitress.
29:28That's for sure. He hates it.
29:30He always tells me,
29:32no, no, no, Nancy.
29:33The people you work with at the bar are not nice to you.
29:37If they are nice, it's because they want to talk about sex.
29:40They never come for your pretty eyes.
29:42They come for sex.
29:48Yakuza is a Japanese word for mafia, organized crime.
29:53The Yakuza are the ones that bring in the big money.
29:57The girls that are working are hoping to be placed at their table
30:01because they're the ones that tip extraordinary amounts of money
30:07in a short amount of time.
30:09They're the ones that bring in the big money.
30:13They tip extraordinary amounts of money in a short time
30:18and then they're off to the next club.
30:21Everyone wants a part of them.
30:27I had been working at this club for maybe a month
30:31when I first met this one man who came in.
30:33He was a really powerful, well-connected man in the Yakuza, the mob.
30:38He always wanted to sit with me when he came in.
30:41When he left, he would tip me $1,000 or $800 every time he left.
30:47So right away he was my favorite customer
30:50because he was paying me good money.
30:55This customer started coming in more and more regularly
30:58and started bringing in gifts for me all the time.
31:01Jewelry and watches and rings and earrings and expensive things.
31:08Things started really progressing.
31:10The manager at the club came to me one night and said,
31:13do you know who this man is?
31:15He's really up there in the Yakuza and we fear him.
31:20If you keep accepting these gifts,
31:22sooner or later you're going to have to give something back.
31:26And it wasn't really until then that I realized
31:28that I had really dug myself into a hole
31:30and I didn't know how to get out of it.
31:33He always wanted to take me out shopping.
31:35Then he wanted to take me out on Dohan.
31:51A Dohan is a dinner date with one of your customers.
31:54And they were wonderful, usually,
31:56because they would take you to these beautiful, lavish, expensive restaurants
32:01that you would never in your lifetime afford to go to.
32:04So you'd go for dinner, have a beautiful meal,
32:06and then take that customer into your club.
32:09That's all it was.
32:18I never do the Dohans because that's totally business.
32:23So I hate Dohans.
32:25If you do Dohan, they get a lot of money from the club.
32:30So I never do that
32:32because this girl thinks I'm really a customer, right?
32:38Not a friend.
32:43Hi, Hitoshi.
32:45It's Hillary calling.
32:48How are you?
32:51Oh, good.
32:53Well, I was just wondering if you wanted to go for dinner maybe tomorrow night?
32:57My club, One Eye Jacks, you have to do three Dohans a month.
33:01You get about 2,500 yen to go on a Dohan,
33:04which is about $32 Canadian, maybe.
33:08You're bringing business into the club.
33:10Okay, so we'll meet at Almond in Roppongi, at the corner.
33:15Almondo.
33:16Okay, see you tomorrow.
33:18One day, I have so many Dohans.
33:21I telephone, Niko, please come tonight Dohan.
33:24Okay, okay, okay.
33:25Okay, Nanji, what time? Where? Okay, okay.
33:28After a few minutes, I call,
33:30Niko, please, many appointments, I can't.
33:35You know?
33:36And then I call again, hostess.
33:41So then three girls, four girls, invite, same restaurant.
33:47And then together, dinner.
33:49You know?
33:50And then all girls, different club.
33:52So, okay, I go one, and then 15 minutes,
33:56and then next girl, Dohan.
33:58And then Dohan, and Dohan, like that.
34:01If I was ever on a Dohan,
34:04it didn't bother me at all that other Japanese people saw me
34:07because it was just, it's a part of the culture.
34:09They're on Dohans all the time,
34:11especially in that area, the entertainment area.
34:13If it's, you know, between 7 and 8 o'clock,
34:15everybody there is on a Dohan, basically.
34:18But it bothered me when foreigners saw me.
34:22I know I thought that at times, too,
34:24when I saw a girl, tall, Western girl,
34:27with a short little Japanese man.
34:29I thought, ugh.
34:30So, hence, I made sure if I went on a dinner date with a customer,
34:34he was never ugly.
34:36He was always reasonably attractive.
34:39Are you going to come back to the club with me?
34:41Because there's a new dance show.
34:43You should see it. It's really, really good.
34:47I like this girl.
34:49That's why I invite.
34:51That's why I not cancel.
34:55But I know this girl only business, no?
34:57Together, going to club.
34:59Of course, good commission, you know, I know.
35:22It's fascinating to see men in the subway during the day,
35:25businessmen with their small suitcases,
35:27very serious, very gentleman with me.
35:29And when I get to the bar,
35:31I pour two, three glasses of whiskey,
35:33and then it starts to transform.
35:37And it becomes macho.
35:39They forget their kindness,
35:41and they go straight to the point, they touch you.
35:43But I always have to impose that I'm not a prostitute.
35:51Whiskey leads men to transform.
35:54And I think it's not just in Japan.
36:04I work in the Ginza neighborhood.
36:08I work with an exclusive clientele,
36:10with a lot of money.
36:12And these are people who can afford
36:14an evening at this bar,
36:16because I think the entry fee is very high.
36:22It's the mentality of men,
36:24of old Japanese men who have a lot of money,
36:26who believe that everything is allowed.
36:28And I want to tell them,
36:30no, it's not because you have a lot of money
36:32that everything is allowed for you.
36:34Every night, I have a request to go to Kyoto
36:37to accompany a businessman for his business,
36:40to spend the day with him in Kyoto,
36:42and maybe even the evening and the night.
36:45How do I react to that?
36:47I always say yes, because it's not good to say no.
36:49This client may say,
36:51Mom, that's too complicated,
36:53I don't want to see her here.
36:55So I always say yes, but I always forget.
37:06The yeses mean no, the no means go to hell sometimes.
37:09It's confusing, but I guess that's part of the fun of the world.
37:12Nothing's really straightforward,
37:14except when you get the bill at the end of the month.
37:20What you have happening in the Mizushoba
37:23is a real commodification of fantasy.
37:26Fantasies are being produced and created
37:29to draw in men to come again
37:32and pay their money to have this fantasy acted out.
37:36And yet, it's also about the creation of something
37:39that appears not to be money at all,
37:41but something that's delightful and wonderful and exquisite
37:46and that transcends those things
37:48that are as mundane and dirty as money.
38:08I mean, tonight when I was walking through the hostess district,
38:11I saw a bar.
38:13It was called Bar Maybe.
38:15I think that just summed it up perfect, you know?
38:18Maybe I'll get lucky, maybe I won't.
38:22I just asked her, how's business?
38:24And she said, well, it's been better.
38:26I said, you making good money?
38:28Not making any, she said.
38:30That's the feeling I think customers get
38:32when they go into a hostess bar.
38:34They're thinking of maybe, is there a possibility
38:37of something more than just customer-hostess relationship?
38:40As compared to the geisha bar with teahouses,
38:42they don't sell the idea of possible sex.
38:46I think they sell the image of romance
38:51or just maybe something untouchable
38:55that everyone desires to have a piece of.
38:58It's totally different.
39:11Oh my God, you're a man!
39:26I've been asked to have sex with a customer a few times, I guess.
39:30In a way, they say, you know,
39:32I want to go to sleep with you tonight.
39:34And you say, no.
39:38And then the next question is usually,
39:40what kind of food do you like?
39:43They don't usually push the issue at all.
39:52I've seen tons falling asleep.
39:56Moshi moshi!
40:00Who is this?
40:04Hiro.
40:08Oh, hi, how are you?
40:11Yeah, I remember you.
40:16OK.
40:18Bye-bye.
40:23Customer, I don't remember, but that's OK.
40:27I'll remember when I see the face, hopefully.
40:33So years and years later,
40:35I was living in Vancouver.
40:37Nico called me up one day,
40:41out of the blue,
40:43and said, look, I just love you so much.
40:46And we'd never had any kind of relationship at all.
40:51Just grant me the opportunity to talk to you.
40:55I just want to meet you somewhere and talk to you.
40:57Anywhere in the world.
40:59So I thought, well, I've never been to Bali.
41:01He arrived the next day, he walked in the door,
41:04and he had this beautiful bracelet for me.
41:07And I thought right away,
41:09I thought, ah, he's already given me gifts,
41:11he's going to want something.
41:13And I said, before he even said hello,
41:15I said, look, I can't stay.
41:17I've only got three days before I go home.
41:20No, Nico, listen.
41:22I don't have time.
41:24I not stay two weeks.
41:26Maybe a couple of days I go home.
41:28Why?
41:30You and me promised two weeks stay here.
41:32No, no, no, I don't have time.
41:34Why, why, why?
41:37And then little bit bad feeling, you know?
41:39He said, look, look, just marry me for one year.
41:42Just try it, try it for one year.
41:44And if at the end of one year,
41:46you're miserable and you don't want to be with me anymore,
41:50I'll give you a million dollars, and that's it.
41:52You can just go on your way and lead your life.
41:57But I try.
41:59If she look to me, I give one million dollars.
42:03But she choice only boyfriend, not money.
42:07He didn't know how else to beg and plead with me.
42:11He just, it was the Japanese society was all about money,
42:14so for him it was natural that a girl would say,
42:16oh, okay, if you're going to pay me, I'll do it.
42:18So I flew home, and that was it.
42:20We had no contact for years and years and years to come.
42:30I mean, a million dollars is a lot of money.
42:32It just depends, you know,
42:34what you can allow yourself to do kind of thing.
42:37I think maybe that's what Tokyo does.
42:39It pushes you to kind of see how far you'll go.
42:59This Yakuza man,
43:01he had asked me to go to a hotel with him many times,
43:04and I had always said no.
43:06But I had to either put out or run away,
43:12basically hide from him.
43:14Being so naive and being so swept away
43:17by the money and the power that this man had,
43:20I agreed to go with him to a hotel.
43:23He took me to a really fancy hotel in the city,
43:27and it was a huge suite,
43:30and it was decked out with flowers and fruit trays,
43:35and I was really afraid and nervous.
43:38I didn't know what was to be expected of me.
43:40I didn't know what was going to happen.
43:46A few minutes later, he came out of the bathroom,
43:49A few minutes later, he came out of the bathroom,
43:52and I looked at him again,
43:54and all of a sudden, this fear went through me.
43:57He was covered from neck to ankle to wrist in tattoos.
44:07And I remember looking at his chest.
44:09He had a round tattoo on his chest of a geisha
44:13with a dagger going through the back of her head
44:15and out her eye and blood.
44:17I remember that image really scared me,
44:20and I was really thinking,
44:23What am I doing here? Who is this man?
44:25How do I get out of here?
44:27But by then, of course, it was pretty much too late.
44:37We ended up having sex that night,
44:39and it lasted for about 20 seconds.
44:43And at the end, I was...
44:49showered with more gifts than he had given me up until then.
44:53He dumped this shopping bag onto the coffee table
44:57and out fell all these velvet boxes.
45:00One big wooden box with a Rolex in it
45:03that was just solid diamonds all the way around.
45:05The face was covered in sapphires.
45:08And then this stack of money.
45:10I thought to myself, Wow, that was pretty easy.
45:12That was, you know, Wow, I can do this.
45:1620 seconds and a Rolex that's worth $60,000 and 10,000 cash.
45:23There's a big temptation,
45:25because especially when the guests offer a girl,
45:28like, you know, we're going to pay you a million yen,
45:30which is $10,000, you know.
45:32So for one night stand, I think the girls would do it.
45:38And we wouldn't know, you know,
45:41because we don't go home with these girls.
45:43We don't check their house, whatever.
45:45So, you know, but of course,
45:47sometimes the Japanese or the guests,
45:49they just love to speak.
45:51They say sometimes when they're drunk,
45:53that's the only time when, you know, we find out about that.
45:56And once we learn about that, that's the time we fire the girls.
46:01Rich guys do anything
46:05to get a girl,
46:08maybe buy cars,
46:10take them to trip, overseas trip,
46:14rent a house for her.
46:17Yes, that's normal if you have a lot of money.
46:27This Yakuza man ended up buying me an apartment in Japan.
46:32It was a beautiful, really expensive,
46:35really large apartment for Japanese standards.
46:40And he wanted me to live there and be his mistress.
46:44That meant being basically at his beck and call
46:47and whenever he wanted to stop by, he could.
46:50I remember staying there a few nights
46:52and realizing suddenly that I was so alone
46:55and so out of my league
46:57and I was dreading the fact that he was going to come there any day
47:01and want to have sex again.
47:03And I thought, my God, like, I've got to get out of this.
47:14I remember taking money out of an account that he had set up for me
47:20and packing up whatever I could.
47:27I went to the airport and I flew away.
47:32I was afraid that he was going to follow me
47:36and I was afraid, thinking that he might be after me
47:39and just really scared.
47:41I lived on a little tiny island in Thailand
47:44for probably two months,
47:46just sort of shivering on my big pile of money,
47:50thinking, like, my God, this is nuts,
47:53that I had slept with someone for money.
47:56And that's what it boiled down to
47:58and that's what was so disturbing to me.
48:00And still is.
48:29It's a big problem for women,
48:31especially for a woman who lives in Canada,
48:33who's not used to it.
48:35It's a job that's really not easy.
48:40I hate the job of a nurse.
48:50I think the geisha world is disappearing.
48:53With Japan becoming more modernized and westernized
48:57and the economic bubble bursting,
49:00the geisha clients are becoming fewer and fewer.
49:04Not to mention the up-and-coming generation
49:07has very little, if not zero, interest in the world itself.
49:12Japan has this fascination of the new
49:15and the new to them is not short-legged,
49:18but it's a very, very, very, very, very, very, very,
49:22not short-legged women in beautiful kimonos with white faces.
49:26It's a nice big busted lady with long legs and a mini skirt.
49:48So I kept going back to Japan
49:50because of the allure and the seductiveness
49:53of such an international cosmopolitan lifestyle.
49:57And then the last time I went back, I was 26 years old,
50:00and that's why I only lasted a few weeks.
50:02I remember thinking,
50:03oh, you're a hostess at 26 years old.
50:05What a loser you must be.
50:08Sometime during that time,
50:12I developed this great deal of respect for Niko.
50:16We were friends outside of the hostessing world.
50:19It didn't cross over.
50:20And he was in love, basically.
50:22He was with someone.
50:24So there was none of that pressure on me.
50:28And that is when I finally saw him or viewed him
50:31as a friend rather than a customer.
50:40Yeah, a little bit look to Dana, you know,
50:44and then slowly, slowly again.
50:47This kind of love and then Dana,
50:49different feeling, you know, different.
50:51True, true feeling, you know.
50:55It was just through a friendship that
50:58love comes from that.
51:00I mean, it doesn't always turn into romantic love,
51:03but I think in most cases,
51:05if you have two people who, you know,
51:07who really care for each other,
51:09you begin to love that person.
51:13So we got married in June 1995.
51:16Maya was born in September 1997.
51:20She's two.
51:22And yeah, we're very happily married, aren't we?
51:26Yeah.
51:27And it's great.
51:28We have this beautiful little girl
51:30who's just, we're so in love with her.
51:32Yeah, aren't we?
51:34And yeah, I mean, financially,
51:39things are a lot different than they were
51:42when we got married,
51:43and I'm working almost full-time.
51:45Nice dress.
51:46Nice dress? Thank you.
51:47Now, no money.
51:49All lost, gone.
51:51That's why Japanese economy,
51:53and then many, many big company bankrupt.
51:58No money. It's okay.
52:00We went through a difficult time.
52:02We're still in that time.
52:04But I look at it as,
52:06I'm so happy that this has happened
52:08because for me, there's no doubt in my mind
52:10that I want to be with him.
52:12But if he hadn't lost his money,
52:14and if it hadn't forced me to have to work
52:17and for a few months even support the family,
52:21I may have always been asking myself,
52:23did I do it for the money or not?
52:25And now I know with all certainty
52:28that that was not the case.
52:39I was looking for something to make me happy,
52:41and I didn't know what it was,
52:43but I was looking for it in money or drugs or alcohol.
52:47None of it was working,
52:49and I've realized since I lived there
52:52that I had no idea that those answers came from within you.
52:56They come from inside, and you can't buy them.
52:59You can have all the money in the world
53:01and still be completely lost in your life.
53:05Now I'm in recovery and clean and sober,
53:09and the bottom line is what I realized today
53:13is today I'm happy because I've found love in my life.
53:16I've found that I can love myself,
53:18and I can love someone else and allow them to love me.
53:22And so I think that's probably what I was looking for the whole time,
53:26but didn't know it.
53:28So think twice,
53:30because you may end up dealing with it for the rest of your life.
53:35Tokyo, Japan
53:49So yeah, I'm going to go back to Canada in a couple days.
53:52It's going to be weird.
53:54I'm going to have to deal with the,
53:56oh, you're hostessing, you know?
53:58Yeah.
53:59I mean, some girls, they come to make money,
54:03and we call it lose the plot.
54:05You come here to make money for whatever reason,
54:09traveling, school,
54:11and then I think some girls kind of forget why they came,
54:16and they end up spending a lot of their money on drugs and partying.
54:20I mean, they're having fun, which is good.
54:23It's good to work hard and have fun.
54:25But I think I've learned I have a lot of strength.
54:30When I realized that my body wasn't doing well drinking, I stopped.
54:34And even though sometimes it is easier to drink,
54:37I was like, no, you know?
54:40Tokyo can be a little crazy at times, you know,
54:43with the nightlife and things like that.
54:45And girls kind of leave here a little bit different than when they came.
54:49Oh, there you go.
54:51Very nice.
54:53I've got to get myself a pair of these before I go home.
54:55Yeah, definite souvenir.
54:58It'll be difficult to go back and to make minimum wage
55:01or even above minimum wage.
55:03It'll just be so much more difficult when you get paid at the end of the month,
55:08and you're just like, wow.
55:10Any advice I would give to a new hostess
55:12is that they know themselves really well,
55:15because a lot of girls come and they just can't do it.
55:18Just be strong and to know that money isn't the end-all, be-all of the world.
55:22You know, you did come to make money,
55:24but you also have yourself to go home with.
55:54Let's go home.
56:24I can't believe this is happening.
56:53I can't believe this is happening.
56:54I can't believe this is happening.
56:55I can't believe this is happening.
56:56I can't believe this is happening.
56:57I can't believe this is happening.
56:58I can't believe this is happening.
56:59I can't believe this is happening.
57:00I can't believe this is happening.
57:01I can't believe this is happening.
57:02I can't believe this is happening.
57:03I can't believe this is happening.
57:04I can't believe this is happening.
57:05I can't believe this is happening.
57:06I can't believe this is happening.
57:07I can't believe this is happening.
57:08I can't believe this is happening.
57:09I can't believe this is happening.
57:10I can't believe this is happening.
57:11I can't believe this is happening.
57:12I can't believe this is happening.
57:13I can't believe this is happening.
57:14I can't believe this is happening.