By Chris Newlands
With the bubble economy a distant memory and the overindulgent expense account a thing of the past, the oldest industry in Japan has had to reluctantly open its doors to foreign custom. The Mizu Shobai, Japan's sexual "water trade" where bar hostesses massage egos and "Soapland" mistresses massage the rest, has seen both prices and sales plummet during the 1990s leaving its suppliers with no option but to relax their prejudices and look to foreign nationals as a remedial for profit loss.
This should come as no surprise given that Japanese households are now spending just 67.8% of their disposable incomes, representing the lowest propensity to consume since 1970, and that corporate entertainment fees, income which has traditionally propped up Japan's water trade, has fallen by more than 13% from a high of ¥6.2 trillion in 1992. In light of this and the fact that the number of foreign nationals (excluding those Koreans with special permanent residency) has increased by more than 30% since 1990 to a figure of 1.4 million, it is of little wonder that a few less apprehensive entrepreneurs are beginning to take notice of this niche in the market.
Prior to and throughout 1985-1991, a period which saw Japan's greatest concentration of wealth, the possibility of tasting the waters of the mizu shobai was an occupation open exclusively to those of Japanese descent, in which xenophobia was conveniently channeled under the pretense of AIDS. It was felt that AIDS, like most things impure, was an imported phenomena and as one Tokyo Soapland tout explained in 1988, "It's not that we have anything against gaijin personally. It's just bad for business. If Japanese customers see gaijin in here, they simply won't come back."
Gone are the days however when alliances were formed, mergers forged and big deals done under the dim light of the hostess bars. This practice has diminished steadily in line with that of corporate accounts, leaving businesses unable to survive merely on personal expenditure alone. People brought up on the notion of lifetime employment have begun to feel the chilly wind of redundancy with unemployment at a post-war high of 4.8%, a figure that has finally eclipsed the US jobless rate of 4.3%.
Authorities are already alarmed that households have started to pull their children out of school as the incidence of high-school dropouts has more than doubled in some Western regions of Japan, and given that Japanese households have long since regarded cutbacks to educational expenses as an economy of the last resort, it is indeed a disturbing trend. Unfortunately personal spending is likely to continue shrinking with a view to the unstable condition of Japanese financial institutions and under further announcements that global giants like NEC and Sony are planning to reduce their workforces by a combined figure of 32,000.
The existing irony for the mizu shobai, an industry that is provided almost entirely for men, is that it is largely at the mercy of the Japanese housewife. This intriguing perspective derives from the fact that Japanese women although enjoying little of the freedom of their western counterparts in the workplace, command a position of authority in the household unparalleled by that of western women.
As a consequence of the unequal opportunities throughout Japanese society there are still comparatively few dual-income families operating in Japan and as such all household expenditure is executed solely by the wife. At the beginning of each month the husband hands over his monthly pay either in an envelope or has it credited to a joint bank account. He is then given back an average of 10 to 15% of his income to cover fares, petrol, meals and the minimum of incidental expenses. This allowance system, or kozukai, makes it particularly difficult for husbands to maintain economic independence and any holes a wife might discover in the bank account may well require a good excuse.
So with corporate accounts slashed, unemployment rising, bonuses frozen and man's sexual spending quashed by the kozukai, those in the water trade have had to seriously re-think their customer policy. In Kabukicho, Tokyo's seedy playground, one such tout recently cited, "Now is not the time to be fussy, I have overheads to maintain . . . and whether Japanese or not, all are welcome here." Indeed a groundbreaking acknowledgement and given the illegality and hence difficulty in obtaining concrete data in this area, maybe the clearest indication of an industry that has been severely hurt by Japan's longest post war recession.
So what does the future hold for the muddy waters of the mizu shobai? Not much it seems given that nine out of ten presidents of major companies surveyed by business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun said they expect the economy to hit rock bottom by the end of the year and that Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa indicated his belief that unemployment is likely to increase even further. What is clear is that unlike many other Japanese markets recently criticized for being closed to foreign investment, the mizu shobai; as a consequence of financial necessity is reluctantly starting to lift some of its barriers to trade. Whether this is a permanent movement is not entirely clear. It would however be a wise suggestion for those gaijin who do wish to participate in this market, to act with urgency. Japan's tragic "good times" may indeed not last forever.
SOURCES
Books
BORNOFF, N. (1994) Pink Samurai Harper Collins, London
GREENFELD, K.T. (1995) Speed Tribes Harper Perennial, New York
NAKAMURA, T. (2nd ed., 1995) The Postwar Japanese Economy University of Tokyo Press, Tokyo
MAK, J., SUNDER, S., ABE, S. & IGAWA, K. (eds.) (1998) Japan &emdash; Why It Works, Why It Doesn't University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu 4