Maya's review
Bar Flower: My Decadently Destructive Days and Nights as a Tokyo Nightclub Hostess by Lea Jacobson
I actually really liked this mostly for the parts about learning about Japanese culture. I also liked the idea of how a certain kind of emotional warmth and human connection could be sold just like a sexual connection can be and how ego gets involved with all of this.
But it wasn't totally thrilling and seemed too much the same after awhile. It didn't take long for the emptiness of the profession to be transferred along to the reader, and just the general sense of the author not learning or growing or doing anything. There was a lack of human connection.
But it wasn't totally thrilling and seemed too much the same after awhile. It didn't take long for the emptiness of the profession to be transferred along to the reader, and just the general sense of the author not learning or growing or doing anything. There was a lack of human connection.
Wow, I would be really interested in reading this, if just for the details. Had some friends in Japan who worked as hostesses part time in Japan, and they all had ambivalent feelings about it, and none really stuck at it very long. Great paycheck, great stories to acquire as an ex-pat but more than a little soul crushing.
You should! Request it from the library! (not worth buying). I think it would be interesting to get the perspective of someone who lived there.I wonder if there could be hostesses in America? It didn't really seem so far-fetched to me. Yet I can't really imagine it of course.
