I only had very glancing experiences with the hostess club culture in Japan when I was much younger. An English conversation teacher doesn't quite make enough in the income tax bracket to even rarely darken any door of such a club in a major centre in Tokyo. However, one year at one of my schools, there was a noticeable number of young women in our year-long course who worked in the hostess industry. It was very much study during the day, entertain at night. Of course, some of our male teachers had to be warned more than once to actually stay focused on the textbook.
One such statuesque student once approached me after recognizing me at the nearby Excelsior (Japanese Starbucks clone) coffee shop and engaged me in English conversation (apparently, she's quite good at that...conversation, that is). She admitted that there were parts of her job she wasn't very fond of but I didn't press on what those were.
But that's what has gotten to put up this particular song by Miyuki Yokoyama（横山みゆき）. I've got a few of her other songs on the blog but this one, "Mistress - Aijin" (Lover), is about as City Pop as I've heard of her thus far. A track from her March 1983 album "Aishite Gomen ne..."（愛してごめんね...Forgive Me For Loving You）, the song was written by Shigeru Amano（天野滋）from the band NSP along with Fuyuko Moroboshi's（諸星冬子）further assistance while the melody was composed by Toshiharu Jitsukawa（実川俊晴）. Speaking of that melody, it is quite pleasingly melancholy and images of either Rajie or Melissa Manchester have been dancing in my head on hearing this one. Perhaps there is even a feeling of resignation in the music considering the titular character and her ultimate fate.
As for your former student, she has a better job these days. Some people use jobs like that to save up money before pursuing their real goals and dreams.
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping that she's in a better and happier state. It's been about twenty years since I last saw her.
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