lol, I guess my feeble mind just isn't dirty enough to see the big picture, thanks for filling in the blanks for me P007!
Went to a few hostess bars in Japan back in the day--that's nearly 4 decades ago!--and soon grew tired of it. I'm not one to pay a lady (or anyone for that matter) to drink and talk with me. Especially because there were plenty of single Japanese ladies willing to talk and drink with me for free--all I had to do was be respectful and make 'em laugh.
Everyone knows Japan has its dirty underbelly, and if we go there I think even P007's wild imagination might fall short. (So let's not.) But as much as I dislike hostess bars, the ones I went to in Japan were pretty tame. None of the ladies spoke English because we were, after all, in Japan.
And the only exploitation I saw was the poor lonely salarymen who got fleeced just for the "opportunity" to vent to someone willing to feign interest. (Think of it as psycho-therapy for lonely, disenfranchised Japanese salarymen.) Of course not all patrons were there for individual therapy; it was also common for groups of "normal" salarymen to socialize and blow off steam after work.
Honestly I've never been in a hostess bar in the U.S., much less in Hawaii so it COULD be different. But I do have some younger friends who have visited hostess bars in L.A. They say it's pretty innocent as well, just expensive. And yes, all the hostesses speak Japanese, exactly why my non-Japanese friends go--to drink and practice their Japanese. They say many of the hostesses are students working part-time.
And it begs the question: does the term "hostess bar" that's being bandied about in the media paint an unrealistically dirtier picture than reality? For example, what if the word "bar" was used without the modifier "hostess"? Would the story have less sex appeal? Probably.
But the question on everyone's mind is, did Kenoi do anything legally wrong? It certainly doesn't look good at this juncture, embarrassing at the very best.
But as a truly unbiased, objective observer (unbiased because I dislike all politicians equally), it seems inappropriate--whether it turns out to be true or not--to project all these dirty accusations onto the situation without presenting any evidence. Is it unreasonable to wait for evidence to come out, and request people to back up their accusations?
Again, I'm not taking sides or defending anyone. Just looking for the truth and hoping the chips will fall where they will.
[Edited to fix dumb typo]
