Alone in the Crowd
Flashy Osaka , one night after ramen noodles. A businessman neatly dressed, cell phone in one hand, briefcase in the other lying on the ground with his mouth open, sleeping. Prof. Schuchardt doesn't make much of it; I follow the herd and remain an observer of this interesting different culture.
After roaming the nearest 100-yen shop alone I go back, just to make sure the guy really is alive and perhaps try to communicate with some Japanese to see if it's normal or if we should call somebody. A guy and a girl, dressed up for the night loyal only to Japanese fashion imperatives, are standing next to him calling someone on the phone. I assume it's the police and I keep munching on my 100-yen cookies, which are not as good as the 200-yen ones.
At a certain point I venture to ask if they speak English, and to my surprise the guy did – he was half Japanese and half Iraqi, of course. Otherwise, good luck finding someone who speaks English in the land of Yamato .
As I discovered, the drunkard on the ground passed out like many do after their stressful day at work. It's fairly common for them to take a nap to escape the world of stress and obligations. People take in so much during the day that at night many of them take refuge in alcohol, a companion that eventually knocks them out.
Alternatively, the Japanese can find real flesh and bone companions to talk to and spend some time with, selecting from a catalogue while comfortably sitting on a couch or right from illuminated billboards that line certain streets. Feeling alone? Pick a friend. An interesting concept, to say the least.
I found out about these places only when Harith (the guy who was standing next to the businessman), after talking for a while, asked me if I wanted to join him for a drink at a “boys' bar.” Given his clothes and the fact that I was alone in a big Japanese city late at night, I was preparing for the worst. What would you do if a guy approached you dressed with a fluffy cowboy hat and a pink foulard and asked you to go have a drink at a boys' bar? But in Japan everything seems to be different: “boys' bars” are places where boys work and girls go, and “girls' bars” are for guys to go to and for girls to work at. Here's how it works.
You go to a bar, pay an entrance fee (about 3,000 yen, or $25), sit down and look at your options. Guys (or girls, if you're a guy) with the funkiest hairstyles and names will all be listed in a catalogue that is handed to you. You choose one, and as soon as he's available he'll come to you. If he's busy, another one of the guys in the club will come and chat with you, and take turns with the others. In the meantime, you sip on your 1,000 yen ($8) drink and wait for your pick to show up.
Once he comes, essentially you are trying to make a new friend that perhaps you would like to become more than just that. You chat, laugh, get to know each other, and exchange phone numbers. You have a good time, but when you leave you get to pay for his drinks, too.
So you like the guy, and make an appointment to see him again. You go to the club, pay your entrance fee, and talk to him some more. You can spend the whole night together, sitting close but never touching. He's always dressed in a coat and tie, and is just the nicest guy you've ever met. But if somehow you don't like him, you can always switch to one of the others anytime you wish.
Wow, what a system. I could not comprehend exactly what that place was until I got the whole story from Harith, who works there at night besides having a part-time job during the day. He wants to become a pilot and he hangs out with girls the whole night. Only one or two hours of sleep there… It's fun to meet new girls all the time, but is it really worth your every night of cozy sleep? Yes it is: of those yen spent on entrance and drinks, Harith gets 45%. That's a big chunk of a big price (paid by the girl), and if there are 40 or 50 girls who come just to see you, then you're really in business.
But it's not all about money. These girls are real people and they have feelings. They come because they feel alone, or just want to meet someone else to become friends with. But with the little sleep and long talks, Harith said he has a hard time remembering everything… so he showed me his secret: a small notebook in which he notes what he talked about with this or that girl, the developments in her life and her dog's name. Before she comes next time, this will be the cheat sheet he'll use to prevent her from feeling offended when he calls her with some other name or forgets that she is in love with the United States , even though she has never been there. But then again, who isn't, in Japan . Harith was telling me that he tells girls he's half Japanese, half Iraqi and half American. It doesn't add up, but they like it, and that's what matters.
It seems just a game where you pretend to like someone who clearly likes you, just to get their money. The truth is that if you are not honest (or at least appear so), nobody will want to come share their lives with you and they'll switch to someone else who will be better able to connect with them. So to keep your customers you need to be sincerely interested in their lives, call them and send them messages during the day, and even go out with them outside of your work. It's as complex as human relationships, really.
Sometimes, as Harith was explaining to me in the wee hours of the morning, he'll become really (and sincerely) good friends with one of his customers, and – the flirting now over – they'll still come, just to up his sales and make him ‘Number 1'. Every month there's a tally of everyone's sales and the top guy gets his dues… at that place, it was 2,500,000 yen a month, $21,000!! And that's just 45% of what the club makes thanks to him, his looks and his personality.
The Japanese really have it advanced. It's the ultimate capitalization on the psychological, moral and physical assets of a human. But the shocking thing is that, in Japan , there is a demand for these relationships: the free ones you get from meeting people in daily life do not seem to be enough for some, who go scouting in the night to find friends and perhaps more.
With the hustle and bustle in flashy Osaka , days are lonely and company is available at your nearest boys' bar.