2008年10月8日水曜日

4..Japanese pop culture ~a part-time job~

Kyabajyoo..
Do you know this word? It's a part of Japanese pop culture...today's theme.

Kyabajyoo is a japanese term that means "Cabaretclub (it's Japanese english: kyaba -kura)+ojyoosan (lady)", girls who work at nightclubs. They talk, drink and sometime go out with their customers to sing Karaoke and other things to try and alleviate some Japanese men's loneliness.

Genarally, this job doesn't have a positive image because people think that it is a kind of prostitution. However, the image is changing in Japan, especially among the young. Many girls work or want to work as Kyabajyoo.




You can see job offer magazines in the center of this photo.
People use them to find a jobs, mostly day-jobs. It is remarkable to see that one sixth of the content of these ads are to work at nightclubs .
I took this picture at a convenience store.
Anyone can see such magazines in public places, it means that any girl has the chance to become a Kyabajyoo.

I asked my part-time job boss,who had been working as nightclub manager, why girls would want to work at those places. He answered briefly: They want to learn good service manners , and to earn a lot of money in a short time instead of the low-salary that day jobs often offer. The highest hourly wage he remembered for a girl was 6,800 yen, he said.Kyabajoo is becoming a popular part-time job. The photo above is a sign board that says "We are looking for girls!" Such establishments are also getting more and more popular by placing their lit signs at the center of a city.
Surprisingly, there is a magazine especially published for Kyabajyoo called "Koakuma ageha" (this is Black Devilish Swallow Tail , it 's in japanese so just look at the photos) and girls called Kyabajyoo models appear on this magazine.
This trend may mean that Japanese girls' common sense is changing extremely but the customers, mostly lonely men in this case, might also be one reason for the increasing number of Kyabajoo.
Many Japanese men feel lonely through their day life, even (or specially ) when they have a family: Their daughters might shout at them :"Get off!"; their wives beg them "Please come home later! Dinner? eat out!"
These men want to talk to someone and spend their off day with their family, but the family shy away from the father, so they go to nightclubs, where there will surely be someone who will listen to them with a smile.
The more Japanese lonely men, the more beautifully dressed ladies to take care of them...for up price. It's just demand and supply.

2 件のコメント:

visual gonthros さんのコメント...

You certainly chose an engaging subject for your post on Japanese popular culture. You write well and your photos illustrate your text. I would like to read more about this subject. How is the kyabajyoo job different from other forms of mizu shobai? How and why and amongst whom have attitudes changed toward kyabajyoo? You describe the demand side well enough (the male perspective for wanting to go to such establishments) but I would like to hear more on the supply side (from the girls themselves). Your topic is challenging and complex, probably deserving more explanation and discussion than what is called for in the assignment.

Akebono さんのコメント...

The picture you paint of the typical family is a sad one.
Is a cabaret club the same as a hostess bar?
Your description indicates that you yourself feel that this type of job is not really respectable, yet your boss said that it teaches girls good manners.
As Visual Gonthros wrote, it certainly would be interesting to hear what the girls themselves say about the job.