ura hello work c. 12 – New Hida’s prostitute
What is Shinya Kusaka’s URA HELLO WORK?
Where can I buy it?
12 – WORKING AT THE “NEW HIDA ENTERTAINMENT ZONE.” （飛田で働くということ）
RISK: ***
SALARY:***
HARD LABOR:****
ILLEGALITY:***
Recently, ‘kyabakura hosutesu’ (carabet club hostess) have become fairly mainstream. It’s as if all the young ladies are doing it. The old image of the kyabakura hosutesu as a tragic whore is disappearing. People tend more and more to think, “She’s confident! Looks like fun!” Instead of junkies and women in debt to the Yakuza, today’s kabakura hosutesu can be a normal woman who just works a few days a month for some extra pocket money. That’s why I didn’t want to interview one for this book!
But on the other hand, the people I’ve interviewed so far have all been guys, and the book needs more sex appeal. That’s when I hit upon a brilliant idea: I’d go to Osaka’s Hida New Entertainment Zone (飛田新地). It’s like Tokyo’s Yoshiwara neighborhood used to be, back in the samurai days: a licensed red-light district. But Hida is still open, and still doing prostitution in the traditional way, called ‘honban alley’
(ed. note: 本番、(literally ‘real performance’), means sex, as opposed to geisha or hostesses, who are all talk).
People have an image of Hida as a vulgar and dilapidated place, but that’s not accurate. I’ve walked all around Hida and it’s got all the conveniences of the modern-day red-light district. There are rows of almost-identical small shops, with a YUUJO (遊女, literally ‘play woman’) on display in the front windows. The yuujo wear colorful kimono. Obaasans (older women) call out to passers-by from the doorways of the shops. The interiors of the shops are very bright and pink, like a little girls’ bedroom. Many people come to Hida not to have sex, but just to absorb the 150-years-ago atmosphere which makes Hida unique.
This time I’ll be interviewing Ms. KANA (24, her maiden name), who used to work in Hida for over half a year. Nowadays she has put sex-work behind her, but prior to working in Hida, she had a lot of different sexual jobs: hostess, fashion health (massage), hotel health (exactly what you think), and so on. Ms. Kana is not the type of beauty that would turn anyone’s head as she walked down the street, but she’s charming. I asked her how she started working in the New Hida Entertainment Zone.
I INSTANTLY FELL IN LOVE WITH THE ATMOSPHERE OF HIDA
“It was the atmosphere! When it comes to fuzoku (風俗, literally ‘vulgar style’, but it means prostitution), there’s absolutely no other place like it. I was born here in Osaka, but I was always a ‘good girl’ who lived with my parents. So I’d heard of Hida but never been there even once! I was working at a massage parlor on the south side. One of my co-workers told me she used to work in Hida. I was curious, so I asked her to take me there sometime.”
New Hida Entertainment Zone is made of two main streets, which are called “Blue Spring Street” and “Youkai Alley” respectively (Youkai are a kind of traditional monster). Younger women work on Blue Spring Street, and older, cheaper women work on Youkai Alley. If you meet a lady from Hida, maybe you shouldn’t use these words, though!
“The first time I saw it, I thought I was in “Ryuuguu-jo” (an old legendary castle)! I felt like I’d had a taimu surippu (‘time-slip’) back to the Edo period! I was slack-jawed with amazement. At night, the streets are lively with people walking, although me and my friend were the only women out for a stroll! My friend seemed to know a lot of people, even though she didn’t work there anymore. People called out to her; there was a sort of feeling of community. At one of the shops, the Obachan called my friend, and we stopped to chat. Then Obachan started asking about me: ‘Does she want to work here?’ My friend said, ‘No, no!’ but it did start me thinking about the possibility. My friend later told me, ‘Don’t do it. Being a YUUJO is not like working at the massage parlor. It’s HONBAN (the ‘real performance’). The work is very physically demanding, even more than working at a soapland. It’s really no fun.”
The reason is that – unlike the ‘soapland’ brothels – most of the customers in Hida can request the ‘short service.’ Short service means they only pay for 15 or 20 minutes, as it’s cheaper. The workers have to stay lubricated with lotion so the customer can immediately penetrate. So a busy Hida worker can have three clients an hour. Ms. Kana didn’t really dislike the thought of ‘honban’, but she was put off by the idea of so many customers in one day, so she abandoned the idea of working at Hida.
“I had a friend who really liked brand goods, and she got in debt. To pay off the debt, she started working at Hida. That’s a common story, but the amount she earned was surprisingly small! The workers sit in the window, motionless, and the customers wander from shop to shop, choosing whichever worker who has a face which appeals to them. So if you don’t have a great face, you’re out of luck! Since I don’t have so much confidence in my looks, that was another reason why I gave up on the idea of working at Hida.”
But, after experiencing Hida’s atmosphere, Ms. Kana found it difficult to work at her massage parlor. She had been caught in the spell! She persuaded her co-worker to take her back a second time, and this time the co-worker introduced Kana to a shop owner.
“The owner was a lady around 40 years old, and pretty street – like she grew up poor and got wealthy late in life. I told her I had experience, and she decided right on the spot. It was much more sudden than I’d anticipated. I started work the very next day! The obasan told me that in Hida, a new worker’s first customer is called the ‘gen.’ If you can’t get a gen on your first day, it’s considered a bad omen, so I was nervous! What’s more, the previous times I’d been to Hida it was night time, the busy time. But I started work in the daytime when there were almost no customers. What could I do?? I wore a very flashy kimono and put on my most beguiling face, and waited. An hour passed. The obasan called out ‘Hey, c’mon in!’ to passing guys, but they all ignored her. Finally a man stopped to chat with obasan. Turned out he was a regular. She said, ‘We have a fresh face today!’ He replied, ‘She looks nervous!’ But he kept looking at me, again and again. Obasan said, ‘Oh, just give her a try already!’ and that’s how I got my ‘gen!’ He said, ‘It’s her first day, so I’ll give her good luck!’ Seems even the customers know about that superstition!
“The regular customers taught me a lot about the rules and history of Hida, and I tried hard to learn more. ‘You have to have a good relationship with your obasan, otherwise you can’t make it,’ they’d say: ‘She’s the one who calls out to customers. If she doesn’t like you, she won’t try very hard to catch them. You can’t rely on your looks alone.’
The prices of Hida New Entertainment Zone vary by time. A 15-minute fuck costs $100. 20 minutes is $160, 30 is $210, and 90 minutes is $420. Some obasan will haggle with you but others won’t. Since business is slow in the daytime, most places will let you stay a bit longer. The YUUJO gets 40~50% of the profit, the obasan gets 10%, and the rest goes to the owner. Some of the most popular workers can get 20 customers per day – at an average of 20 minutes each, that’s 1500 per day. But not many women can keep up that pace even if they wanted to.
FORCED INTO PROSTITUTION TO PAY OFF DEBTS
Because Hida’s system is more arduous than most brothels, there’s more desperate women working there.
“The two other women at my shop both had bad debts. One got hooked on drugs and ran into money trouble that way. The other one, she never told me the reason, but apparently it was a lot of money! But at other shops, the workers were like me – they loved the atmosphere. Really, everyone’s got their own reasons. Paying for an operation for their parents. The most surprising reason I heard was, this one girl, she just liked sex! I mean, you can’t make it here if you really hate sex, but I’d never heard of anyone finding it fun! She would work without a condom, so she was pretty popular! Plus she’d give ‘time service’ – go into extra innings for free. If she liked the guy, she was determined to outlast him.”
Ms. Kana was a bit more popular than average, apparently. When I walked around Hida, I was sometimes surprised by how beautiful the women were. Despite Hida’s cheap-and-dirty approach to selling sex, some of the women are really high quality. Of course, they’re all doing their best to look pretty, but still.
“When customers walk by, some girls make flirty faces like, ‘I want it!’, but I never bothered to. I could get guys just by sitting politely and letting obasan do her thing. The guys sometimes told me they like my doll-like vacant stare. Even if the guys didn’t come in, I really enjoyed sitting there and taking in the whole atmosphere, seeing the community. In other red-light districts it’s more of a fast-food approach: Hurry up and cum! But Hida isn’t like that. It’s got a deep, traditional charm to it.”
There’s a little room on the second floor – a traditional Japanese style room with a futon. All in good taste. Technically the New Hida Entertainment Zone is under the jurisdiction of the Osaka Restaurant-and-bar laws. Having futons in a restaurant was a bit too obvious – so, to save face, they used cushions instead. But now they’re back to futons. Also, they don’t have showers (too modern) so the worker will wipe the customer down with warm, moist towels before sex. First, the worker takes the client upstairs, and goes through the motions of giving him the food – really expensive food. The customer pays for the food, not sex. After that, if they happen to fall in love and take their relationship to the next level, it’s up to them, not a matter for the law.
IF I COULD, I’D LIKE TO WORK THERE AGAIN
“Of course some of the customers are irritating. The worst ones are the guys that lecture me about, ‘You must not have any self-respect if you work here.’ I want to say, ‘What are YOU doing here, then?’ but I don’t. Plus, since I’m in Hida, I can sort of imagine that I’m the tragic heroine of an Edo drama, and put an enjoyably epic spin on my troubles. I enjoyed my first three or four months a lot! But then my boss told me, ‘My other shop just had a girl quit so I’m transferring you.’ Turns out the reason she quit was that that shop’s obasan was a total bitch! And now I was stuck with her.
“If she couldn’t catch any customers, she’d start yelling, ‘This is your fault! Fix your makeup – or put a bag over your head!’ all kinds of crazy stuff. All so she could get her ten percent. The place felt like a regular, run-of-the-mill brothel: all business, and no romantic atmosphere. I couldn’t enjoy the parade of people walking by anymore – because she was so stressed about money. Work became more difficult.
“One time me and her got into a huge argument. I felt like crying, but I didn’t want her to see me. I held it in, but I really wanted to quit after that. My co-worker told me I should complain to the boss, but what would I say? I didn’t know. Obasan wasn’t messing up the business end of things. And I hate gossiping and telling lies.”
Eventually I had a long talk with obasan, and we managed to patch things up – after that we were always very candid and straight-forward with each other. But, still, when you’re selling your body, there are always moments of despair that come and go. For example, one day I was cleaning one of the rooms and found some small graffiti carved into the wood by a previous girl: ‘I’ve been sick for many days and many months.’ When I read that, I felt like I was looking into a bottomless well of sadness. This woman – I didn’t even know who she was, but she was doing the same work as me, in the same room as me. I felt her pain so strongly. I had to go home early that day. But, a few weeks later, when I was cleaning another room, I found another hidden message: ‘After many days and many months, my sickness went away.’ I felt instantly relieved. I guess that woman is still working here – and able to carry on in spite of everything.”
Unfortunately, a few months later, Ms. Kana had to quit the business because her health was failing. Her obasan and co-workers came to see her off, even the shop owner came. She looks healthy now, and has managed to finally put her prostitute days behind her. She’s living off of her modest savings, for now, and taking it easy. But before we finished the interview, Ms. Kana had one last thing to say: “I don’t really want to go back to prostitution, but if I had to, I’d want to do it at New Hida Entertainment Zone.”
6 Comments so far
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What an endorsement!
Sounds like the 30 minute package is the worst value by far.
Fascinating stuff.
I really think those people should get a lot more respect than they do.
“30 is $2,100″ … $200, maybe?
30 minutes is a great value for the cost conscious consumer. Fuck and go, all there is to it.
Sorry for being a wiseass, but it’s “Tobita Shinchi” not “Higa Shinchi”. The kanji are read the kunyomi-way.
Keep up the good work,though!