Today's 'Flicks

Yesterday's Netflicks, watched online:

Lilya 4-ever, a Danish (?) movie about a sixteen-year-old girl who is abandoned by her mother somewhere in the Soviet Union and who is trafficked into prostitution in Sweden. At the end of the movie, she commits suicide by jumping off a bridge.

My Little Chickadee, the only movie Mae West and W.C. Fields made together (supposedly because Mae West couldn't abide by Field's drunken ways). Of course I've seen it before, but Mae West is a delight to watch. (Whenever I see her voluptuous, corseted figure, I always think of the Parisian designer who, when confronted with Mae West's measurements, exclaimed, "Scandalous!") A bit of trivia: In this movie anyway, it's actually W.C. Fields, not Mae West, who delivers the line, "Come up and see me sometime."

Today's Netflicks, watched online:

I Like Killing Flies, the 2003 documentary about the famous NYC restaurant, Shopsin's. The menu is a gem, the pancakes alone are amazing and include "mac'n'cheese pancakes" and "postmodern pancakes" (which are pancakes chopped up and added to cooking pancakes).

The Great Happiness Space: Tales of an Osaka Love Thief, the 2006 documentary about a host club in west Japan. What's a host club? Well, it's the place where women can go to pay men to drink and talk with them--and for the promise of something more. The hosts in the documentary are very young, usually in their early 20's, and they earn between 1,000,000 and 5,000,000 yen a month (between $10,000 and $50,000 per month) in a busted city like Osaka. They probably earn twice that or more in Tokyo. About 20 hosts will work in a small club, selling whatever they can to the women who patronize them. (And where do the women get the money to pay between $500 and $7,000 for a single night's entertainment? Many of the women in the documentary admit to being fuzoku, soapland prostitutes, who themselves earn 30,000 to 150,000 yen a day.)

I have two stories about host clubs:

When I lived in Tokyo, I was invited to a host club by one of the women who came to The Kaisha. She was "dating" one of the hosts, and would gladly pay about 8,000 to 10,000 yen ($80 to $100) per hour for his company. A single night with him--about four hours--could run her about 50,000 yen (around $500) bucks, once drinks and food were tallied in. I was curious---but broke--so I regretfully declined her offer.

When I was visiting with Kazu in Okayama, we passed a place where the hosts were out on the street trolling for customers. (This is a common business practice in Japan, not only for hosts and hostesses, but also for prostitutes, karaoke clubs, and, yes, even language schools like The Kaisha. Though I never did it, the head teacher at my school told me that the previous manager used to have the foreign teachers go out and hand out fliers near the station.) As we walked by these young men who were trying to drum up business by looking cool while desperately to strike up conversations with the women who were walking by, Kazu said, "Nanpa. They are picking up girls." I had heard of nanpa (or nampa) before, but it had been used in the context of any guy trying to pick up any girl. Apparently, the term also applies to hosts trying to pick up customers. Very blatant for a place with a reputation for a reserved populace, I'll tell you.