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Bar Flower: My Decadently Destructive Days and Nights as a Tokyo Nightclub Hostess | 
 enlarge | Author: Lea Jacobson
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $12.46
You Save: $12.49 (50%)
New (31) Used (8) Collectible (1) from $12.24
Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 99422
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.7 x 1.2
ISBN: 0312368976
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.292092
EAN: 9780312368975
ASIN: 0312368976
Publication Date: April 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
During daylight hours, the city of Tokyo is the very image of robotic conformity. At night, however, it transforms into a “floating world” of escapism, as “all-work” salarymen seek a place to play.
Though fascinated by Japanese language and culture, American Lea Jacobson had some difficulty conforming to Japan’s rigidly structured society. After she was fired from her job as an English teacher, Lea found work as a nightclub hostess on Tokyo’s Ginza strip and transformed herself into a doll-like confection whose job it was to flatter, flirt, and engage in mock relationships with her middle-aged clients. Working as a hostess—the occupation a direct descendant of the geisha tradition—quickly became lucrative...and addictive.
Her perceptions distorted by the drinks she was paid to consume, her identity confused by the fake personalities she assumed nightly, Jacobson began to lose herself in this fantasy culture. As she descended into self-abuse and alcoholism, she found that the seductive lifestyle she loved so much seemed impossible to escape.
Jacobson’s searing insights into Japan’s cultural dynamics, erotic fascinations, gender politics, and her own spiral into sensory excess create a haunting and mesmerizing memoir that will leave readers transfixed.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
The Floating Girl November 13, 2008
Like Lea Jacobsen, I also went to Japan to teach English and spent nearly 6 years in the country. Unlike her, I never strayed from the straight economy into the `mizu shobai' though I was equally fascinated and repelled by this `floating world--in which men trade money for sexual favors both real and imaginary. Even in my relatively provincial town, I encountered quite a few Western girls like Jacobsen, though--young, blonde & pretty--who, as the Japanese fantasy ideal of Western beauty were in great demand at all levels of the entertainment industry. Jacobsen's background in Japanese studies gives her a bit more heft than the typical bar hostess, who rarely possess her combination of linguistic ability and education, because they are strictly unnecessary; plying youthful looks into quick cash is the stock in trade of a `floating girl', and the less complicated she seems, the better. At the start, I had high hopes that Jacobsen could do for the world of hostessing what Liza Dalby did for the geisha world in her ground-breaking book, "Geisha". Unfortunately as she goes on, Jacobsen loses most of her credibility as a student of culture and becomes one more of the legion of young, unfocused women who have traded on their looks for money so long that they become addicted to the fatuous lifestyle doing so offers, even as it does great damage to them. She displays a bit more capacity for self-reflection than the average party girl, but the tone is much more Elizabeth Wurtzel than Liza Dalby. The bar hostess has no equivalent in America, so insofar as Jacobsen has demystified for a Western audience what goes on in an upscale Ginza hostess club, she has succeeded, though there is little pleasure here. The author is a self-admitted alcoholic, recovering anorexic and cutter; as such she could have hardly chosen a country or a profession that would end up making her more vulnerable to her demons. "Bar Flower" should be read as a cautionary tale: Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be hostesses! Anyone who's experienced Japan firsthand will be able to put Jacobsen's experiences in context; those who have not will get an eye-opening lesson that modern Japan is not all cherry blossoms and pretty views. 3.5 stars.
 Diasappointing November 5, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As someone who has lived in central Tokyo for almost eight years, I was hoping to find an interesting insider's tale of hostessing in Japan. Unfortunately, there was nothing particularly unique in this book that I couldn't have learned from anyone in a local bar. And by no means are her anecdotes decadent in a truly Tokyo way; the combo hostess/strip clubs in Roppongi are much wilder and much more self-destructive for the women working there, not to mention the s&m bars or the private naked/partner swap parties. Her wild nights were not nearly as wild as an ordinary night out in Roppongi for a drunken expat banker. She also has a poor geographical memory as she misplaces numerous bars that she frequented. Can't understand why she is perpetually broke if she's making such big money hostessing--including three dohans per week versus the quota of two per month--pays only about $500 per month in rent (roughly half the cost of one of her regular's nightly tabs) and never has to buy her own dinner or drinks as she is an expert in getting those for free, yet can't afford the cost of a moving van, which from personal experience runs about $300 for a one-day in-town move. Everything regarding her hostessing career seems greatly exaggerated, as if she were writing a memoir based on other people's stories. While I trust she was a hostess, her story nonetheless reads like a revisionist diary. The most interesting part was her relationship with little Ayu, a story line which was completely abandoned once her hostessing began. Lots of sloppy errors with dates and geography. While she has a moving story with regards to the August 2005 anniversary of the WWII A-bombing, her interpretation of the somber mood over all of Japan is simply wrong. On the contrary, Japanese news shows, as well as CNN, ran numerous interviews with Japanese citizens on the street who had no idea why August 6 and 9 were significant in Japanese history. Ultimately, the book is disappointing for old Tokyo hands as her attempt to prove her immersion into Japanese culture are revealed as exaggerated by numerous mistakes and failure to experience many of the more decadent floating world. Though obviously cathartic for the author, the book is rather sophomoric.
 Boring but thankfully short September 25, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Wow. This book was pretty bad in my opinion. Reading it was painful because of the author's own comments on strung together observations. I had picked up this book in Penn station in NY thinking of getting something to read on the train and instead I opted to just fall asleep. The author writes about an incident where she's a nanny having a tea party and she draws the conclusion herself that she is in fact alice tumbling down a rabbit hole. Come on, really? The author is pretentious and exaggerates facts to fit the story, as also written by another reviewer on amazon. The book is boring and written poorly, it sounds like the author should go back to being a hostess because being a writer doesn't seem to be working out too well.
questionable details and bad editing August 8, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
Survivor first aired in on May 31, 2000. Lea Jacobson first went to Japan in 2003. Why is this significant? In the book, Lea's mom tells her that life is not an episode of Survivor. Lea claims to not know what she's talking about. I have a hard time believing that she really hadn't heard of Survivor since at least two seasons had aired on North American television before she even set foot in Japan and it was a huge phenomenon. Having been in Japan at that time, even I had heard of Survivor. If you picked up a newspaper or magazine there was something about Survivor in it. You had to have been living under a rock to not have at least known what it was - even someone living in Montreal. She claims that upon returning to the States, she had to be told what C.S.I. stood for. That show first aired on October 6th, 2000, nearly three years before Lea set foot in Japan. These may be minor errors and maybe she was just never a big television fan. More likely she tried using her supposed lack of knowledge about those shows to emphasize how immersed in Japan and how out of touch with America she'd been but the devil is in the details and if she'd "misrepresent the truth" about television shows it made me wonder what else she'd "misrepresent". The club she mentions early on is actually called One-Eyed Jacks not One-Eyed Zacks. It's a big club and advertises in a free, English magazine popular among foreigners living in Tokyo. Additionally, there is no shinkansen (bullet train) to Kamakura station. Ms. Jacobson could have used a better editor and fact checker. The book itself is passably interesting but doesn't add much to the "misspent youth" type memoir of which there are many and many better ones. If you have an interest in the world Japanese floating world you may find some appeal in this book but otherwise I'd recommend something by Liza Dalby who trained as a geisha and writes with far more skill and without sensationalizing things.
 Heartbreaking July 6, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
In Bar Flower: My Decadently Destructive Days and Nights as a Tokyo Nightclub Hostess, Lea Jacobson recounts the roughly two years she spent as a nightclub hostess in Tokyo's Ginza district.
After she went to Japan in 2003 to work as an English teacher, Jacobson was fired from her job after a psychiatrist spilled the beans to her employer about her fragile emotional condition. She then went to Tokyo, where she began work as a hostess, entertaining Japanese "sararimen," even though she was psychologically unwell. Jacobson describes the underbelly of Tokyo culture as being in a "floating world," where everything is fluid and nothing stays constant for very long. Along the way, we're introduced to a variety of interesting characters, including a dragon-like mama-san, an Irish boyfriend named Nigel, who lies to her; and a four-year-old girl who learned perfect English entirely from Disney movies.
Jacobson's knowledge of Japanese culture is spot-on. She details her drug addiction without feeling sorry for herself, and even though you don't want to watch her spin out of control, you do, because her story is heartbreaking. But Jacobson learns a valuable lesson from her mistakes, and she does a wonderful job of analyzing, not rationalizing, her decisions.
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