If only I had read this before I plunged into the Bunnie's Club I might have known better:

"There also are the bars and cabarets that simply do not care to cater to foreigners. Often they have their own clientele, and maintain a clublike atmostphere that excludes even Japanese who do not belong to the coterie. Unless you have a Japanese friend who wants to take you to 'his' bar or club and introduce you to the manager, you are wiser to pass these places by." (page 30)

Acutally, these men and Ma might agree on one thing - the economic nature of many of these relationships. While Ma sees a better world of cultural understanding that would bridge the gap left by material misperception, these men write during a more immediately post-World War II era when Japan was still busy rebuilding and fighting for staples in life. These women in "For Men With Yen" are not subservient, nor or are they completely scheming. They are women who are working in the Japanese tradition of the performing hostess (Geisha), with less training and more proliferation. They are making money, and they are subject to their own whimsey. They are remarkably human characters in this book, considering that I have been lead to believe that many of the early foreign men in Japan were heedlessly libidinous conquerors. Maybe these men were taking advantage of economic disadvantage to be flattered and get laid. They explain themselves by explaining the economy in which they participated. That economy is still very active today, except there are more Ukrainian girls involved now.

Links (December 2001)

• This book turns up pretty often in an ABE Used book search.