Ten minutes by subway from the boulevards of Tokyo's upscale Ginza shopping district lies Roppongi, popular among expatriate bankers, US servicemen and Japanese salarymen for a less salubrious trade: sex.
Business is booming. Each night, dark-suited workers prowl neon-lit streets in search of hostess bars and strip joints that make up what Japan refers to as the "water trade." The US$15 billion sex industry expanded by an estimated 5.5 percent between 1995 and 2000, making it seem recession-proof. Yet even this business isn't immune to forces reshaping the world's second-biggest economy: after a decade-long slide in consumer spending, prices are starting to fall.
At Roppongi's Bunny Club Zen, an early-bird special now offers customers several hours of chat and drinks with scantily clad young girls for ?3,000 (US$22.75). That's a third the minimum charge after 7:30pm.
PHOTO: REUTERS
"Our club sets prices very low compared to others so people with tight budgets can come," said manager Tomoharu Nakazawa. "Competition is getting fierce."
Japan's tolerance for the sex trade dates to the 17th century, when Shoguns allowed brothels to operate in Tokyo's Yoshiwara district. They said it was an attempt to maintain discipline and social order.
The sex industry remains in full view. Love hotels dot the streets of Shibuya in central Tokyo, where couples can live out an Arabian Nights fantasy in themed rooms, or at least gain a few hours of privacy from cramped apartments. Manga comics, some of which mix graphic violence and explicit pornography, are popular reading among rush-hour commuters.
As sex clubs adjust to new economic realities, the industry is also getting more recruits. In part, that's because Japan's biggest companies, such as Hitachi Ltd to NEC Corp, have cut tens of thousands of jobs and trimmed wages.
Prostitution, pornographic films and so-called fashion-health clubs, massage parlors that offer sexual services, are expanding, meantime, "as increasingly available cheap sex lures more people to the industry," said Takashi Kadokura, an economist at Dai-Ichi Kangyo Research Institute.
Twenty-year-old Nana Mizuno says she earned about ?30 million (US$230,000) from the 100 porn films she says she starred in last year, about seven times more than she'd earn as an office worker. She spent most of that on the Bulgari ring and Cartier watch she wears, high-priced restaurant meals and expensive clothes.
"I'm rather proud of my job, considering the sliding economy," she said. "After all, I'm helping the economy by spending all my income." Others agree.
"It's very easy to convince girls to play a part in porn films these days," said Nobukatsu Tsuchihashi, 25, who offers potential starlets ?100,000 to appear in one of his sex videos.
The high-school dropout, who scouts for talent on the streets of Shibuya, a teenage shopping mecca, says he generated ?460 million in income last year.
While Japan's historical tolerance helped break down taboos against becoming a sex worker, it may also encourage the misguided view that it isn't risky. Because sex education isn't considered a priority at home or in schools, critics say, young women are at risk from HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and are at risk of abduction or murder.
"These girls should realize they're risking their lives working in such an industry," said Yoko Komiyama, a female legislator from the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, who has worked to ban child pornography. "They have never had a proper sex education to understand the risks they could encounter." One case that grabbed international attention was the murder of 21-year-old Lucie Blackman. The former British Airways flight attendant disappeared in July 2000 after going on a date with a man she met while working as a hostess in a Roppongi bar.
After Blackman's remains were found in a beachside cave, police arrested former real-estate developer Joji Obara and charged him with her death. Obara pleaded innocent and is now awaiting trial.
Such grisly tales don't deter employees at Bunny Club Zen.
Consider Abe, 26, who said she earns about ?300,000 a month, more than she earns from her daytime job as a telemarketer, by donning a bunny suit four nights a week to chat up businessmen and government bureaucrats.
"I'm saving most of the money to start my own business," said Abe, who declined to give her last name. "It's fun to be in costumes, and this is something I can do only when I'm young."
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique