Party's over for Japan's Western hostesses

[gkanai]

[Mulboyne]

AFP: Japan's bar industry still lures foreign women

..."Westerners used to work on their tourist visas casually as they backpacked the world," said Ryuji Demachi, a 51-year-old former freelance writer who specialises in Japanese nightlife. "There is still a market for Western hostesses, but the places where they can work now have gone down to one-tenth from their height." Filipinas, Asians and Eastern Europeans are the most determined to make money and send it back to their parents or buy a house back home, he said...Demachi said foreign women found the work of a bar hostess to be a good deal -- they earn plenty of money without selling sex. "Prostitution is not a prerequisite of this industry," he said. "They only chat, drink and sing karaoke with Japanese men, and they can earn a fortune." Jun and Gina both said that Japanese men often came off as perverts but were essentially harmless. But asked what they would do if they were victimised, the two Filipinas paused for a moment as they watched the disco ball revolving from the ceiling. They said they would not trust the police...