7.20.2008 Japanese Male Hosts - Review of "The Great Happiness Space - Tale of an Osaka Love Thief"

Last year I watched an amazing and odd documentary on moviesfoundonline about the world of Japanese Male Hosts named The Great Happiness Space - Tale of an Osaka Love Thief. The movie was eventually taken down because it isn't free domain so it's no longer available to watch free online. It's available here on netflix and unfortunately only on amazon at a ridiculous price. Unfortunately it seems impossible to find even a trailer online now but there are quite a few great review.



The Japanese male hosts stand outside in the early evening trying to lure females into their clubs. Girls can also go to these clubs and flip through books of pictures of the male hosts and pick the one they like the best. Different hosts have different "prices" but their price is the price you must spend on a bottle of champaign in order to buy some of their time and attention.



Surprisingly the male host world, at least from the Osaka club covered in the documentary, has little to do with sex. The men mostly woo the women and make them feel special and even though they may be sharing a table with 5 or 6 other women competing for the hosts attention by buying more and more expensive champaign the hosts still manage to make each woman believe that she has the special relationship with him and that if she just keeps coming back and spending more and more money that maybe she will actually have a chance someday to really be his real girlfriend.

Of course it's all a lie and the moment a woman stops spending money the attention she had is taken away from her and poured on some other woman. Behind the scenes the hosts shuddered and talked about how gross our crazy they found the women minutes after they had been lifting up the women to believe they are so special and valuable. The guys talk about how if they break the having sex barrier then it will quickly be over. The women have gotten the trophy so their interest will dissolve.



The saddest part of the whole documentary is when you started to find out that most of the women who are patrons at the clubs are actually female prostitutes who work at "massage parlors". They crave love and attention so badly that they have to buy it because their profession is so shameful they can't have a real relationship. It's a vicious cycle, they make their money by doing degrading work but then spend all their money on fake acceptance that becomes addictive so they have to continue doing what they do to pay the high host fees instead of spending the large amount of money they make on improving their life in a different way.... either by spending the money on themselves or by bettering themselves to be able to escape their field of work. The women really seemed like sad empty souls with vampires feeding on what little light was left inside them.

Still the hosts interviewed in the documentary were strangely charismatic and parts showed their own depression over what they were doing.

Han and I walked down one street which seemed to have these kind of male hosts and there were posters everywhere. The guys seemed to have an otherworldliness about them that is hard to explain.

I definitely recommend seeing the documentary if you can get your hands on it.

Labels: Japan, movie reviews, Only in Asia, Tokyo

Shameful confession

My 2nd meal in Japan was Wendy's.

Taiwan has all sorts of Western fast food but what they don't have is my favorite burger joint. Han and I were walking around on our first full day in Tokyo looking for some brunch. We turned a corner and I screamed "WENDYS!!!!!!!!!"



Han has the metabolism of a teenager so he has not problem eating junk food at any hour.

Wendy's was my "last meal" before I left Canada last time too (thanks Louis!). I promised myself I'll only do it once more before I leave.

Labels: gastronomical adventures, Japan, Tokyo

Japan - the good

So what's good about Japan?

- Everyone here is SO polite. Just ridiculously polite.

People smile when they talk to you, they apologize profusely over nothing and if they see you stopped looking at a map with a puzzled look on their face they'll come over and do their best to help you.

The foreshadowing I experience for how polite Japanese people are was when our plane was about to take off from Taipei. The plane was backing out of its parking space (sorry I don't know the technical terms) and all of the ground workers who prepare the plane for take-off were waving. At first I thought "wow, the pilot must be a really nice man, all the workers are waving goodbye to him" but then as the plane moved away more I realized, "hey they're not waving at the pilot, they're waving to us!!!". I guess I'm a big mushy dork but that made me melt a little and I waved enthusiastically back. Then on landing the same type of workers bowed upon or landing. It gave me an instant love of Japan.

A few times I've been taking pictures in the wrong place of things I haven't been allowed to take pictures of. Of course it's embarrassing to do something wrong and potentially culturally "incorrect" but every time this has happened I've been approached by a big genuine smile and a little bow telling me that pictures aren't allowed or where I am allowed to take pictures from.

- Transportation is futuristic.

As much of a nightmare as the subway/train system is, it is also awesome. I can leave from Uken's little area of Hashimoto and go all the way to the other end of Japan without ever having to leave the train system. The tickets are a bit pricey but if you enter Japan with a JR pass it's really convenient.

- Capsule machines are everywhere.

The capsule machines that we had growing up would pop out little plastic happy face rings that would break as soon as you put them on your finger but Japanese capsule machines are small toy stores. Everything you can imagine from small guns that fire little pellets, scantly dressed women, poop themed toys, and lots of nostalgia. These have been my biggest souvenir so far and even though we have a lot of these in Taiwan, Japan is the land of capsule machines. Everywhere we go they have them... Han even got a boat capsule on the boat tour we where on. There will definitely be more pictures of these to come.



- The food is amazing.



This is no surprise. I've always loved Japanese food. I think Han and I eat Japanese at least once a week but of course, in Japan, the Japanese food is SO much better. I'd been warned so many times before I left and heard SO many people complain about how expensive everything is and how expensive the food is but what a co-worker told me is true, if you eat like a local the food is not expensive at all. Of course Taiwan is much cheaper and it's possible to eat a huge meal in Taiwan for only a couple of dollars but still Japan is much better than I expected.



One kind of place we've really enjoyed in Japan has been the restaurants where you buy a ticket for your food from a machine that has pictures of all the food on buttons. These are great because most of the time it's fairly easy to figure out what the food is and avoids us having to deal with the language barrier, plus the food is usually cheap and yummy!!

- There is SO much to do here.

It takes no imagination to find something to do here. While we're in Japan we're going to spend one week traveling outside of Japan and about 2 weeks in Tokyo. I thought 2 weeks in Tokyo was going to be way too much but so far we haven't even been here a week and we've seen such a small amount of what can be seen.

As much as I whine and complain about having to do some of the things that Han wants to do like baseball games, wrestling matches, motorcycle races.... I have to admit that it's given me a much fuller experience of Japan. Usually I travel alone and do what I want to do but it ends up being the same kinds of things (temples, beaches, anything with animals) but I kind of burn out on it and feel a bit bored. Even though it felt like a waste of time at first it has been a great way to experience a different part of Japanese culture to go and people watch at some of these sporting events. Although I'll never admit it to him one of the most fun things I've done so far was spend an evening at Toyota City. There were all kinds of simulators, cars to sit in, things to play with, and all free!!!

I guess I'll buy that opposites attract since doing things I didn't want to do and would've never done if I had come alone have given me a much fuller and rewarding experience in Japan.

-Japan loves Nintendo.

I see people playing DS in Taiwan and some back home but PSP still seems to be the winner. In Japan Nintendo is EVERYWHERE. We've walked into game stores that had more DS games than I could've ever imagined existed and probably half of which will never exist in the western world. Games that haven't even come out yet in the west. Then of course weird stuff. They have DS "games" that teach parenting and how to cook, no not mama's cooking, actually cooking instructions and recipes. My favorite so far and I think I'll buy it for the novelty alone if I see it again was "ENGLISH OF DEATH"! There are a plethora of English teaching games here but this one had a very goth horror theme. Hilarious.

- Japanese is easy.

I can say a word for the first time from my phrase book and Japanese people will instantly understand what I am saying. Mandarin I can say something I know how to say and repeat it 10 times without the Taiwanese person I'm speaking to understanding what I'm saying. Unlike Chinese Japanese doesn't have different tones to worry about and Japanese words seem to roll off the tongue easily. A co-worker explained that the actual amount of sounds in the Japanese language is very few so it is less complicated to learn compared to other Asian languages.

- Japanese women look "healthier" than most Taiwanese women.

Since Japan is a fashion capital and so many Taiwanese seem to want to "look" Japanese I kind of thought the weight obsession had come from Japan but mostly Japanese women seem to have a healthier weight and shape. Han and I were eating in one of the ticket machine restaurants I mentioned above and saw a girl walk in who had legs thinner than my arms and I thought "wow, ok, finally I've seen an overly thin Japanese girl" then she started speaking and Han said "she's from Taiwan, I can tell from her Mandarin". I'm not generalizing and saying Taiwanese women are unhealthy. There are just a large number of weight obsessed young girls and women.

- Japanese people do this at baseball games:



- I think I'm going to lose 10lbs here.

I walk a fair amount in Taipei but Han and I have been walking almost 12 hours a day. Transportation is very good here but sometimes even making it from the place where you bought your ticket for the subway to the actual train is a 15 minute walk. Then walking around outside and going anywhere takes a long long time. I'm sure I'd complain if I lived here but as a tourist it's great. I'm really getting to see a lot of the city. I'm not skipping any meals. Who would want to here?? but I think my pants are getting looser already.

Labels: Japan, Tokyo

In Japan!!! Why I love Taipei more still....

Monday night Han and I left Taipei for 21 days in Japan. We're lucky enough that Han has a (wonderful, beautiful, and cool) sister Uken who lives in Tokyo who is housing us for most of our stay. I find every day in Japan I'm constantly comparing things to Taiwan. I've always wondered if I could, or would want to live here . So far Japan seems to be better than Taiwan in about a million different ways. Strangely some of the reasons that make Japan "better" make me love Taiwan more. Maybe I could stand to live here for a year when Han eventually has to do his mandatory military service but I am pretty sure now Taiwan is home.

I'm not sure if I want or need to have the choice of 1000s of different vacuum cleaners in one building, or as many different kinds of toilets, watches, or cellphones. I love public transportation but having the train and subway system so interconnected creates this monster spiderweb that makes every day feel like I'm living in some kind of complex video game labyrinth. I have to find the right ticket booth for the right gates for the right trains and figure out whether the train or subway is cheaper or faster. Just to illustrate what I'm talking about here is the Taipei metro map:

Here are two different systems for Tokyo that don't even show all of the stations that belong to the Tokyo area:



Taipei's metro has 8 lines and 67 stations. Tokyo has 13 lines and 282 stations.

In all fairness Tokyo boasts a population of 12,790,000 to Taipei's 2,630,515 but that's just one more reason why I love Taipei more.

The malls are nearly as bad as the subway system with so many interconnected buildings and endless levels of stores for everything you could ever imagine and some things that you would never imagine (humping dog USB anyone?? note: Uken has one of these):



It's a love/hate relationship with me and the malls.

Something else I didn't expect is that Tokyo doesn't share Taipei's love of convenience stores. It's hard to make anyone believe how many convenience stores are in Taipei unless you've been there and I have a hard time believing there are any countries that rival it. Between 7-11s, Family Marts, Hi lifes, Nico Marts, and some more I'm sure that I'm forgetting I feel like there is a conveniences store for every 10 people in Taiwan. It's not weird to see a conveniences store next door to a rival convenience store with another across the street. Two 7-11s can sometimes be on opposite ends of the same blocks. According to Wikipedia there are 7000 7-Eleven locations in Taiwan giving it the 3 largest amount in the world... keep in mind that's ONLY 7-Eleven.

In comparison in Tokyo the convenience stores seem almost scarce but in place are vending machines EVERYWHERE. I still haven't seen any of the famous beer vending machines but Soda, juice, and cigarette vending machines are everywhere.



Oh and my last observation of something I don't like about Japan so far before I get into what I love. People smoke here, it seems a lot! I'm actually really surprised. I hadn't imagined this as a smoking culture. In my own life I've had less and less exposure to smoking and smokers. In high school it seemed like EVERYONE one smoked, and my closest group of friends and I, excluding a couple of people were the rare ones who didn't. Then as laws were passed to prohibit smoking in more and more places smoking almost became invisible. I guess not being into the clubs is part of the reason why I haven't been so exposed to it. In Taiwan it seems more similar to Canada, there are smokers but it seems on my beaten path,it's a much smaller percentage of the population. Rarely do I see smokers in front of buildings or in parks. Sometimes flying by on scooters (smoking + flame seems like a bad idea but I see it) and sometimes in smoking sections of cafes or restaurants. I actually saw a propane delivery man (on a scooter with propane strapped to the back) with a lit cigarette before we left Taiwan. Yikes.

Labels: Japan, relationships, taipei, Tokyo