Workaholic Hostess

I just moved in with my father in Los Angeles, after living in Tokyo for years and years, where I was an off-and-on hostess*.

Maybe it was the job, most likely it was me, but I needed a CHANGE. My life wasn't going in the direction it should have been going, and I felt like I had to sort things out at the root of the problem. Hence the move to my daddy's house.

I'm also half Japanese half American and I've been working on finding a place for myself in between two pretty contrasting cultures.

Some visuals of my family are here.

*hostess is a woman who works in a bar or night club, who is paid to be a drinking companion to male customers. It's as weird as it sounds.

Here's the Cast of Characters that showed up in my blog during the hostess-period. Now that I'm a FORMER hostess, these cats won't be showing up as much:
BEST FRIEND is my best friend. She's a tall white girl who used to be a crazy alcoholic hostess. She's now a super successful and sober writer, and she kicks ass. She recently got married, thereby closing the door to the crazy hostess phase of her life, and has officially become a grownup.

BALDY is my good friend that's bald. He's also American, and kind of hairy. He is a little weird with some confidence problems, and he unfortunately morphed into a Charisma Man when he moved to Japan in his 20s (he's now in his 30s). I guess you can't blame him because I don't think a lot of women are into hairy geeks in America, but in Japan he gets decent-looking girls. Although his current girlfriend is a world class b-word. 

BOXER is a small Japanese boxer that I had a thing going with for a minute. But there are too many other hostesses in his life. I think I had my fun and I'm over him.

CHIBA GIRL is a Filipina woman who's worked as a hostess in Japan since she was 17. She looks about the same age as me, but she's actually 42. She lives in the closet next door to mine, has a complicated marriage/visa situation, and sends money home to her two nearly-grown princess daughters back in the Philippines.

DAD is a white guy that lives in LA. He decided to become a clinical psychologist (I think) a few years ago. I'm going back to live with him for a few months to try to repair our relationship. Maybe then I'll finally be able to date men that don't treat me bad.

DANCER GIRL is a Japanese girl that spent a long time in London working as a singer and dancer. She's getting divorced from her loser husband, who she just got married to.

HANDSOME DENTIST is Dancer Girl's friend. He's single, he's from Kansai, he's hot, and he's Japanese. That is all.

JADE/JADIE is my hostess name, within this blog. I'm not telling you my real hostess name, ha!

MAMA is the old hag that mamas the ghetto Roppongi club.

MAMA'S BOY is my ex-boyfriend. Ethnically he's half Australian, half Japanese, but he doesn't really know his (Ozzie) dad, and his English sucks. We were very young, and very, very entwined. Things got messy, I got pregnant, I think we both cheated, and it all went to hell, thank god. He's kind of a borderline thug, and he's got a bunch of borderline thug friends. They do things like get caught up working for the mob, go to jail, and drink too much.

MAMA MASAKO is the amazing Filipina (but half Spanish) mama that ran a now-no-longer club in Ginza, who taught me everything I know about this type of work. She's beautiful, awesome, has a 14-year-old son, and is a true master of her craft.

MARTY is my good friend the photographer. We used to live close to each other about seven years ago, and we used to bounce around getting drunk and high and laugh all day. She now works for a big international news agency and lives in NYC. And she's the one that dyed my hair RED! It's all her fault.

MIA is 37. She's been working as a hostess off and on since she was 21. She's a chronically under-employed actress, but she hasn't given up yet. Other ex-professions include DJ, Bunny Girl, Companion (she still does that), etc. She's tall and thin with a cute button nose, but she smokes too much (always behind a curtain away from customers), and she's a professional drunk. She drinks way too much and sometimes passes out on the customers, it's just bad.

MOM is kind of a strange Japanese lady that currently lives in Northern California. She's into real estate, and also teaches at Saturday Japanese school in 'frisco. She has two cats, and doesn't want or have a boyfriend.

MONKEY FACE is probably my favorite customer. He's very sad and lonely, and maybe one of the ugliest, most shriveled, pathetic looking people you've ever seen in your life. But he tries really hard to have fun.

NEON is one of my best customers. He can't stand his wife, so he goes out every night to strip clubs, hostess clubs, bars, etc. He works really hard and is kind of a big shot in his big multi national company, so he basically is devoting himself 110% all the time to either work or play. So I wasn't surprised when he suddenly told me his health has deteriorated. It might be cancer, but he's not slowing down.

SABRINA is my shopaholic Russian girlfriend. We worked together in a really awful company (not hostessing, but I felt like more of a whore there than at any club I've worked at) and became good friends. She has a sexy accent, and I love doing impressions of her -- "oh blaaahd" (don't know how to spell that) is one of her favorite phrases. She now lives in NYC.

SHIA is an artist and art teacher who's just too talented for his own good. He's from Bosnia/Sarajevo and then immigrated to Canada. Now he lives in Tokyo, and he's a handsome gay guy.

SHORTY is a short Japanese guy that's good friends with Mama's Boy. He's been in and out of jail for drugs for a few years now. Currently out.

MY SISTERS, I have two of them. One of them is my twin sister, the other one is my baby sister, and they both work very hard and live in LA.

SLUGGER is a big Japanese guy that works as a bartender in the freelance club I go to sometimes. He looks Korean, but says he's in fact all Japanese. He's also big like an American guy. Probably because he went to America on a baseball scholarship. News flash! He cheats on his girlfriend big time -- sometimes with me.

SONGBIRD is a girl that worked at the club for a year from the age of 20 to 21. She graduated university and is now working as a singer. Her mother died, but she seems to be overcompensating by being as bright and cheerful as she always was.

TOTORO is a supremely short, older, elvis-coiffed customer that works for a big clothing company. He's shaped like the Big Totoro so that's his name. Right now he calls me every day.

VIETNAMESE SKATER BOY is my little sister's friend who lives in San Diego. He visited me here in Tokyo and we had fun.

OTHER STUFF THAT SHOWS UP IN MY BLOG
THE BUBBLE ERA was the glorious period of economic prosperity that overtook our little island of Japan in the 80s (with a slight afterglow bleeding into the early 90s). Everyone had more money than they knew what to do with, blew their noses with 10,000yen bills and an attractive girl could make a decent living simply flirting with men then asking for cab fare home (he'd give you a wad of bills than you'd turn the corner and get off, then take the bus). Or so the legend goes. I was in elementary school at the time.

THE CLOSET/TREE HOUSE is the small room I live in right now. It's very, very small.

PAID DATES or "dohans" are when a customer takes you out for dinner or whatever before work, then takes you back to the club. He has to pay the club for this privilege, and you get some of that money.

THE GHETTO ROPPONGI CLUB is the club I work in right now, and it is very ghetto. It's small, dirty, management is cheap, and it's falling apart.

GOKON is a Japanese word for a weird thing where an equal number of guys and girls show up at some restaurant or bar and sit across from each other and they see if they hit it off. I have no idea why this exists. In America you would be like "wanna hang out and meet my friend?" But in Japan I guess you do it like this.