72 posts tagged “roppongi”

Tomorrow it's bye bye to my red hair. I've had it for about nine months, during which I've managed to fry the ends of my hair so badly, it can't retain any hair color and it immediately fades to a stupid brassy color.

I'm going to interview in some normal, high-class (read: NOT "international") clubs in the swanky neighborhood of Ginza -- which is where I happen to reside at the moment (but not in the swanky part.)

The benefits of working in a high-class traditional (read: NOT "international") Ginza club are as follows:

• higher hourly wage
• MUCH shorter hours -- most clubs close before 1am!
• less pressure
• more respect
• customers are better behaved
• did I mention shorter hours?
• generally just a huge swing in the right direction of the LESS For MORE equation. Less work and effort for More moolah.
  

So I will practice my respectful Japanese, I will wear my nicest clothes, I will dye my hair black and I will hide my tattoo and scars, and I will GET THE JOB!

I didn't realize until I stopped to think about it, how trashy and Roppongi I kind of look. I'm really going to have to clean myself up. There's a Japanese proverb that goes something like "If you're near black ink, you'll turn black," which basically means that if you're living and working in Roppongi, you're going to look like you do. Not really, but you know what I mean.

Me and D-girl are saying bye-bye to the ghetto club. Bye bye!

btw I got a big week-long Fixer job. I'll be 2,000dollars closer to affording grad school after that! Now if I could get a job like that every two weeks...
And bye bye bye! to George Dubya. Jesus, did you see his goodbye speech? Thank goodness we won't have to deal with that anymore.

I still like the word "misunderestimated" though

I started watching "Platonic Sex" last night (an oldish movie based on the memoir by porn star turned tv personality Ai Iijima, trailer below)

and it started out with a scene in crappy Roppongi. It looked exactly the same, the streets, the buildings, the people, the grey early morning sky, the concrete, the noise. It was a little weird.

So that must have been why I had a really intense dream that I was back in Roppongi working as a hostess. For some reason, I was with my twin sister, we had just finished work, and we were walking down the street. I was counting the cracks on the pavement, looking away every time I saw a familiar face, thinking about my bed and how I was exhausted, feeling the sun slowly rise, avoiding drunk people who were passed out on the street or blinking at the sun...

and then I woke up. The cats were sleeping around me and my mom was singing to herself while she got ready for work, and I was here in some mountain California town, far away from Tokyo. It was really weird. I don't think I've had such a real dream in a long time.

Ughhhhh.

I am so sick of this whole Dancer Girl situation. She's now upset because her baby daddy is being an immature a-hole. Surprise! He slept with her good friend while she was on vacation. This weird hoe-bag girl who's half Brazilian and her father's yakuza, so she's loaded and she just goes out every night sleeping with stupid guys and giving them gifts and spending all her money in bars. Yeah, she's real smart. Apparently retardo-baby-daddy-boy went home with her because he thought he could get an iPod or more out of her. Which makes him a whore. I HATE guys like him, who just try to get things out of girls. That's why I never pay on a date.

Plus he's stalling and making a million excuses as to why he can't give Dancer money for the abortion. He's telling her "hey baby, we were never serious or nothing, right?" Which shouldn't really upset D, since she ONLY SPENT THE NIGHT WITH HIM TWICE!

I am just disappointed in my friend and disgusted by everyone.

If I was still in Tokyo, I would have seriously rained on baby-daddy's stupid parade. I'm the girl that all the guys hate. I'm what they call the cock-blocker, I'm "no fun," I need to "lighten up," blah blah blah. I just know the game these players are playing and I just don't play. That's all. I would have cut through all his bullshit and told him to shut up with the excuses and come up with the money. Right now. Then I would have talked to his boss (a bar owner in Roppongi who cheats on his beautiful but stupid wife constantly) and asked for an advance on his pay. I would have ripped his balls out for a few hours until I got the money. If there still wasn't any money after I was through with him, then I'd walk away and give up. And I'd tell D to do everyone a favor and never talk to his sorry ass again. And to never set foot in that hole-in-the-wall bar again. While she's at it, she can just stay away from Roppongi too.

Besides, I lent her enough money for the abortion already.

This may sound bad, but maybe being forced into an abortion is a rite of passage for girls. I might have never grown up if I didn't get mine. And hopefully, D will grow up after hers.

Also hopefully, I won't have to hear about these idiots ever again in my life.

I just got another email from my old boss, the world's laziest hostess club owner. He sent me a summer greeting e-card (that he made himself, what a dork). It's not as amusing as his last email.

"It's so terribly hot here. I try to sweat it out a few hours at the gym every day to get away from the heat. Here in Japan the news is always bad, with an earthquake in the northeast and stabbings of innocent people. Please enjoy your time with your father, bye." And then a pdf of a strange penguin and some glacial landscape. I guess the idea was that it made you feel cooler because it's so hot right now.

I seem to have gotten myself onto his mailing list. He spends all his time sending greetings and coupons through email and actual mail and not doing actual work at the club.

But he's a good father and a faithful husband. He barely does any work at the club (comes to work late and leaves early and doesn't do anything while he's there), but he gets up early every day, walks his kids to school and is a good stay at home dad.

One time one of the other daddies that he sees every morning when he walks his kids to pre-school came to our club. This daddy said that the boss told him to come to the club some time, so he did, bringing two of his co-workers. They were actually pretty cool. Both this daddy and my boss married foreign women, so their kids were like me. Which was a little bit freaky.

Just got an email from my old boss at the ghetto club.

He said "Tokyo's still rainy and humid and won't clear up. Just imagining LA, I feel like going there right now. Relax while you're there, but there are lots of fat people in America so be careful not to gain too much weight. A little bit is okay, but too much and you'll be in trouble when you get back to Japan."

That's a literal translation of what he said.

Jesus, talk about a crazy house. I just got off of skyping with Dancer Girl. In CASE anybody still cares about those crazy ladies I used to work with, here's an update.

Mama complained about how rude I used to be to her best customer Kawasaki. He's a big shot at Toshiba, and seriously, Kawasaki is his real name. I just googled him and his stupid disgusting face showed up and I almost dry heaved. He spits when he talks, he is obnoxious and drunk and stupid, and because he's such a big shot, EVERYONE around him bows down to him and lets him say rude, racist, obnoxious, ignorant things. He says these things sometimes for hours and hours and hours into the night, holding his underlings hostage in our ghetto club when they'd much rather go home and sleep.

Plus he gives mama sleeping pills.

Anyway, I hated his ass and I never hid it. You can't expect other girls to treat your own customers nicely, that's one of the reasons why you have to be friendly with your co-workers (even if you're the mama).

Then there's Mia. Who is still drinking too much and passing out on top of customers. She's going to quit though, and spend the summer working in some vacation resort far away so she can lead a quiet life and just work and sleep and save her money and her soul. I think Mia forgets that she's 37 years old. Just because she doesn't look or act it doesn't change the fact that she's GETTING OLD! She says after saving all that resort money, she's going to New York. Don't ask me why. I think she wants to DJ there.

Chiba Girl is still wanting to throw everything away to move to Texas. I just don't care anymore. I'm sick of telling her the same thing.

There's a new girl. Very young, has a young kid, she's from America. She's living with a friend while she teaches English and hostesses. Her friend watches her kid while she's at work. Don't ask me why she came to Tokyo where things are expensive, space is cramped, and life can be hard for foreigners and single moms. I feel like there are some big pieces missing in her reasoning.

I told Dancer to get a new job, at least work somewhere else. She said she'll just stay there until September, which is when she's coming to visit me. I feel like she should quit now. She should have quit yesterday. She can sing, she can dance, she can get paid more in a nicer place. Ugh, that club was so crap.

Thank goodness I'm FREE of that PLACE.

"I think being a hostess kind of messes us up," said Dancer. "What!? No!" I said. "Yeah," she answered. "We stay up when people are supposed to sleep, our lives are all wrong."

When we hung up, Dancer told me she was going to sleep. "What time is it?" I asked her. "Um, 12 in the afternoon."

Home. Kind of busy today. Got some new contacts that I'll never use. A new girl came in to interview (Japanese, very hostess-like) and ended up working for the night. She's coming from a high-class place with a lot of pressure, and she made me realize yet again how ghetto this place is. We found out that we were the same age. I thought she was much younger, and vice versa. Maybe conventional wisdom isn't true -- hostessing keeps you young!!!????

But it all doesn't matter because I am DONE!

I gave mama a hug and she said "come back, okay?" I said okay, and she said "thank you, that's all I wanted to hear."

I got an email on my phone from the boss saying "take care, rest up, and come back to us when you're back in Japan. That is if we're still open (laugh)."

I won't be going back. I don't think.

How come I always get my period right before I travel? Last day of work, first day of my period.

Mia spilled wine all over herself last night. She always drinks too much and does stuff like that. She went to the back and got changed behind the curtain (where she usually smokes). It was kind of sexy when she drunkenly left her dress outside and had to reach out for it with her bare arm. Or maybe it was just ditzy and stupid, I don't know.

Chiba Girl was in a super happy mood too. For the past few weeks she's been feeling tired and she wouldn't stop complaining about her small room, the noisy neighborhood, the drunken losers that are everywhere, and how hard she has to work. The issues she's been having with drinking, throwing up, insomnia and sleeping pills were getting the better of her. But last night she actually said "I love Roppongi!"

She went back to Chiba and her husband last week, and I think she remembered how boring that place is, and how she has so much more fun here. So that was good.

"Come back here in four months, okay!? I'm going to still be here!" she exclaimed, even though last week she said she was quitting after I left. "You'll still be here, right Mia?" she asked. To which Mia replied "I hope not." It seems like those two have patched up their extended cold war fight.

I'm feeling a little sad that it's my last day. I'm not as extreme as Chiba Girl, but I do have my ups and downs with the job. There have definitely been a few ups. I just might miss it a little.

I'm off to my last day as a Roppongi hostess.

行ってきます！

Sat with an American customer today. He was nice. Not sure if it's just the general setting or what, but American customers always think I'm lying when I say I'm American. They start saying my accent is funny or this that and the other. Not that I really care.

This was his first time in Japan. He seemed a little unsure about what to make of everything at first, but then he got really happy and comfortable and relaxed and seemed to really like me. After an hour he was telling me about his hotel room and how he was alone in it. He had a good time and when it was time to leave, he had to be dragged out by his Japanese business associates (who were paying).

Most foreigners laugh at hostess clubs. Like "what kind of loser has to PAY to talk to GIRLS?" or "what's the point if you don't get SEX?" This is usually followed by some comment about how sexist Japanese society is, and how it's so sad that Japanese men can't communicate with their wives and have to pay for female companionship.

But it usually doesn't take foreign men long to get it (whatever "it" is) once they actually get taken to a hostess club. A lot of foreign business associates who have to take regular trips to Tokyo end up getting hooked on a hostess or two, just like any Japanese salaryman.

Tomorrow is my last day!!!!!!!!

Almost time to say goodbye to my little treehouse/closet (photo courtesy of Shia and his awesome wide lens camera):

Well I got some of my shit done. Sent the box off to Sabrina in NYC and brought all my stuff over to Best Friend's house. I'll call the landlord and sort out my phone tomorrow.

I'm gonna get fat this last week in Tokyo because all my friends want to take me out for a goodbye meal.

My ex-boyfriend (would-be-baby-daddy) called and wanted to meet up. Our schedules weren't really compatible (he paints buildings so he finishes around 8pm and only has Sundays off). I think it's good that he only has one day off a week, and that his job is physical so that he's exhausted. It keeps him out of trouble. He said he might take a sick day on Thursday.

I think I'll call and email my customers on Thursday and tell them Friday's my last day. I might as well.

I was telling Best Friend about how mama told me to turn the sound off when I was watching Coyote Ugly on the big TV screen, and I told her too bad because I wanted to watch it. Best Friend informed me that "you know you can't talk to people like that in the real world." Then she said that if she'd still work in a club if she could. Which kind of surprised me, but actually she's an all-or-nothing type of girl so she absolutely couldn't. She felt like a failure if she didn't have more paid dates than all the other girls. I, on the other hand, couldn't give two shits if I didn't have any paid dates. Then again, I'm a professional half-asser.

What will I do when i come back to Japan? I could be a bilingual office worker or do technical writing or translation again. "You could just write a book," said Best Friend, as if it was that easy. Just because she did it doesn't mean anybody can.

Anyway, I need to focus on what I'm going to be doing in LA. I do have my work cut out for me. Maybe I'll archive this blog and start a new one.