Sex and Business in China

[Jacob]

Snacks aren't hostess clubs. Sort of.
As I say whether the girl is attractive isn't necessarily so. I actually have a few female friends who work/have worked in such places and they aren't whores (well, except my ex, duh).
My first experience with one was actually by mistake, me and some friends thought it was just a cool little Japanese bar only to be hit by a $20 cover for our 1 beer each.
The standard of snacks is a little box room with only bar seating, maybe 6 customers or so at a time.
These ones I went to when I worked with a Japanese company....I guess some were of a somewhat different genre, Philippine Clubs. But some used the name snack; Big places where as well as the bar women there are women paid to mingle with the guests, pour them drinks, listen to them bitch about their boss, etc...
Hostess bars are pretty famous and I'm sure everyone knows those at least. Snacks...They're similar but much cheaper and more casual.
The company I worked for in Japan wasn't exactly top class afterall.

Intersting!

I think I accidentally went to one some years back in Takayama, with a couple of American blokes I met at the place I was staying.

It was a tiny little bar on the second floor, with maybe 8 barstools and a bar. The lady was older and dressed a little provocatively, and she was quite friendly (in a chatty sort of way, no innuendo; though if she'd been hotter and younger it may have worked differently). After a few drinks, she turned on the karaoke screen and went straight to Hotel California. That was the young Americans' first exposure to karaoke, and it was a big hit. We got very verydrunk, and I honestly have no idea if we paid a cover charge when we settled the bill.

... if that's what a snack is, it seems to me to be that they ensure that the staff is female and friendly and actively trying to make sure you enjoy yourself. There was nothing sexual about it, but it was a good time; paying a bit extra for that doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

[Jacob]

Why do you keep harping on this?  I brought it up once a wild guess and then immediately said it probably did not apply to Korea so probably was not the reason. Does Japan not have a shame based culture?

I thought were the one harping on it - I'm happy to let it lie.

[Valmy]

I thought were the one harping on it - I'm happy to let it lie.

[CountDeMoney]

[Josquius]

Intersting!

I think I accidentally went to one some years back in Takayama, with a couple of American blokes I met at the place I was staying.

It was a tiny little bar on the second floor, with maybe 8 barstools and a bar. The lady was older and dressed a little provocatively, and she was quite friendly (in a chatty sort of way, no innuendo; though if she'd been hotter and younger it may have worked differently). After a few drinks, she turned on the karaoke screen and went straight to Hotel California. That was the young Americans' first exposure to karaoke, and it was a big hit. We got very verydrunk, and I honestly have no idea if we paid a cover charge when we settled the bill.

... if that's what a snack is, it seems to me to be that they ensure that the staff is female and friendly and actively trying to make sure you enjoy yourself. There was nothing sexual about it, but it was a good time; paying a bit extra for that doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

Sounds like a snack.
Karaoke is often a key component of snacks.
The one I went to my first time.... a bit bigger than just a bar, it also had 2 tables for 4.
I recall a friend asking if they had nomihodai/all you can drink and she was told they have all you can sing. And by entering and ordering we were allowed one free song. We ordered obscure, awesome stuff. Not standard snack-karaoke fayre.
The barmaid as reasonably young and seemed so friendly and cool but she was just dressed pretty normally. The usual pub I went to in my city also had young, cool barmaids and is a pretty normal pub in the western sense, so I thought nothing of it. Afterall, university students are the usual workers in bars, no?

We saw in the menu a beer was 600 and thought that was quite reasonable until the bill hit us. Not a huge amount in the grand scale but the principle angered me and really put me off further experimentation with random Japanese bars.


Takayama is the last place I would associate with such vulgar representations of modern Japan though! I guess what with the Japanese definition of city you weren't in the touristy bit?

[CountDeMoney]

Some argue using the 2nd bomb on Nagasnaki was overkill.

[garbon]

Some argue using the 2nd bomb on Nagasnaki was overkill.

I'm wondering if I would feel sadder paying someone to talk to me vs. paying someone for sex.

[Josquius]

Should have been Kokura.  That place is a shit hole.
Nagasaki rules.

[Valmy]

Well maybe it used to be a shit hole and they made it better once we blew it up.

[Jacob]

Takayama is the last place I would associate with such vulgar representations of modern Japan though! I guess what with the Japanese definition of city you weren't in the touristy bit?

My guess is that the money->companionship aspect of modern Japan can be found pretty much everywhere in the country.

But yeah, we weren't in the touristy bit AFAIK (not that there's much of that in Takayama other than the historical village, IIRC).

[Jacob]

Some argue using the 2nd bomb on Nagasnaki was overkill.

I'm wondering if I would feel sadder paying someone to talk to me vs. paying someone for sex.

Well, I believe the talking to you part is included in the fees so it's easier to rationalize as "we're at an expensive place where the staff just happens to be attractive and nice" rather than "I have to pay for this."

Also, I believe, in most cases the "talking to" things are frequently more of a group outing which tend to obscure feelings of sadness.

[jimmy olsen]

Okay, then you were using some bizarre Japanese slang. The end result is the same, the audience doesn't know what the hell you're talking about.

It's not bizarre Japanese slang. Many of the signs for such places outright say 'snack', articles written about them call them snacks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_and_hostess_clubs#Snack_bars

Chinglish, Konglish, Japlish, it doesn't matter how common it is in every day use in that country it's still slang Tyr, and it's beyond unreasonable to expect anlgophones who haven't lived in that country to know it.

[jimmy olsen]

Takayama is the last place I would associate with such vulgar representations of modern Japan though! I guess what with the Japanese definition of city you weren't in the touristy bit?

Christ, don't go full Lettow on us.

[garbon]

Some argue using the 2nd bomb on Nagasnaki was overkill.

I'm wondering if I would feel sadder paying someone to talk to me vs. paying someone for sex.

Well, I believe the talking to you part is included in the fees so it's easier to rationalize as "we're at an expensive place where the staff just happens to be attractive and nice" rather than "I have to pay for this."

Also, I believe, in most cases the "talking to" things are frequently more of a group outing which tend to obscure feelings of sadness.

Okay under that description, I think I would just feel sleazy.

[garbon]

Okay, then you were using some bizarre Japanese slang. The end result is the same, the audience doesn't know what the hell you're talking about.

It's not bizarre Japanese slang. Many of the signs for such places outright say 'snack', articles written about them call them snacks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_and_hostess_clubs#Snack_bars

Chinglish, Konglish, Japlish, it doesn't matter how common it is in every day use in that country it's still slang Tyr, and it's beyond unreasonable to expect anlgophones who haven't lived in that country to know it.

Yeah I don't know of these snacks. Of course, I only know of hostess bars as the video game series Yakuza required your character to go to them.