The main similarities between Tokyo Girls and The Great Happiness Space is the importance of spoken language in the jobs of both the female and male hosts. To both the male and female hosts, their job involves "healing" their socially- or romantically-deprived customer by weaving dreams out of sweet nothings: common topics for conversation include work or everyday life, and even personal issues. By providing their customer with a listening ear and simulating a relationship with an attraction person for their customer, the hosts and hostesses stand to make a profit as the simulations they create ensure that the customer gets hooked on the attention and willingly pay for more. However, there is a stark difference in the tone and usage of language between the hosts of either gender. For the female hosts, one of them mentions that sometimes her customers tell her to keep quiet, implying that perhaps they expect her to act more like the "ideal" Japanese woman, demure and shy, allowing for the male to speak more while all she is allowed to offer is her attention and acknowledgement. She adds on that other customers "want to learn English, not about your life". This does show that these Canadian women are seen as exotic, and one of the motivations for many customers is to learn English, a language with ever-growing prestige. Being able to hold a conversation over English over wine with a beautiful Caucasian woman would certainly provide customers with a (false) sense of sophistication and accomplishment. However, these male customers do not seek sexual favours. We see that they are mostly businessmen, or at the very least just office clerks. These men know that soliciting prostitution services would only hinder their reputation among their family and colleagues since it is looked down upon in society, so they stay away from doing so. Meanwhile, the speech acts demonstrated by the male hosts from The Great Happiness Space are vastly different from the ladies from Tokyo Girls. The male hosts are very persistent when touting for customers, showering passing women with compliments and attempting to start conversations in a bid to usher them to their host club. Even in the club, the men are the ones who start the conversation in an effort to entertain, asking their customers about their life or if they want more drinks. These hosts also project an ideal image that their female customers desire—a dashing, outgoing man who is still tender enough to be sensitive to a girl's emotional needs. The hosts are also more rowdy than the the hostesses and customers from Tokyo Girls, where the setting looks more posh—the male hosts constantly chug alcohol every night and yell chants to liven up the party. The Great Happiness Space demonstrates a setting that presents socialising taken to more risqué levels: their female customers are not only drawn to the club out of loneliness or infatuation, some even desire to have sex with the hosts. These women, especially the regular customers, seem to be more open to having sex with the hosts they fancy as most of them already work as escorts or prostitutes in the same area. Of course, being a host and hostess clearly looks much easier than it actually is. Despite the high salary cited by many of them, most of them do not seem to express a high level of job satisfaction as well, because of the array of demands from various customers and the working hours that turns their daily schedules upside-down.

The main difference between Tokyo Girls (TG) and The Great Happiness Space (TGHS) is that in the former, the girls are seen as exotic creatures as they are white , while the men from TGHS are generally locals. Both groups of hosts differ from prostitutes as they do not solely provide sexual pleasure - rather their main aim is to provide company and companionship. In TGHS, the women seeking male hosts are portrayed as desperate to be 'healed' in some way due to the emotionally and mentally draining nature of their jobs, many of which are related to the 'night life scene'. In TG, however, the male customers seem to want this relationship with their hostesses to boost their male ego and sense of masculinity.

I guess both the documentaries show how the clients want their hosts to perform their stereotypical genders. Both documentaries, the hostesses and hosts are expected to be there to provide company to their clients. However, in the Tokyo Girls documentary, they hostesses are expected perform their stereotypical gender; using feminine linguistic cues, being super polite and encouraging their client's masculinities. However, when we look at The Great Happiness In Space documentary, female clients want their host to be "mean" and "physical". Hence, male hosts would have to perform this stereotyped role; the cool, masculine male that all the girls want to hang out with. This shows that different clients have different desires, and these hosts and hostesses would need to perform accordingly to get a stable income.

Tokyo Girls focused on four Canadian women who went to Japan to work as hostesses, attracted by the 'easy money'. The hosts featured in The Great Happiness Space were natives who were similarly attracted by the potential high pay that the job offers. For both the hosts and the hostesses, their customers mainly did not desire to have any sexual relations with them and only wanted to be in the company of the host or hostess. The customers of the hosts visit the host club to relieve stress from their jobs by talking with the hosts. This is because many of them have jobs that are frowned upon by society (prostitute, soapland, etc), and the hosts are there to listen and comfort and sometimes even provide advice for them. The customers of the hostesses view the hostesses as a symbol of status as they are white girls, and being seen with them boosts their ego. Cameron and Kulick (2003) note that the conversations hostesses have with their customers has the purpose of making the men feel more masculine. For both the hosts and hostesses, they therefore have to constantly flatter their customers, even if they have to lie about it.

Hosting club culture in Japan is a very interesting and very niched market with reference to the discourse between the hosts / hostesses and their customers. I would go into a host club just for the sake of it, but then I don't understand Japanese and that pretty much defeats the point - which suggests that, in and of itself, hosting club culture is largely expressed through the language used by the hosts and hostesses. Similarities between the work of hostesses in clubs for men and the work of male hosts in clubs for women probably end in the job description and requirements. Both hosts and hostesses are paid to entertain members of the opposite sex, where returning customers are very important for their business. The differences are plenty, starting with the target demographic, with hostess clubs attracting older men, and host clubs attracting relatively younger girls. This age difference alone changes the power dynamic between the host/client and hostess/client, and is apparent in the language used and the roles played by the host / hostess. A host keeps his client 'dreaming' while a hostess tries to 'heal' the customer, a host-client relationship is all about lip service while all a hostess does is 'talk and fall in love'. Hosts can tell their clients - 70-80% of whom are hostesses themselves - how much to spend, how not to spend, or tell them how to behave, essentially acting as their therapist/ advisor, while the role of the hostess is to support the fragile masculinity of men, through homosocial interactions that is strangely always presented as male-male conversations, where "a good hostess makes (the client) feel like a man." Another important difference is the distinction of the types of hostess clubs, such as with cabaret clubs vs prostitutes, where there is a clear distinction between hostesses who sleep with their customers and hostesses who don't. There is no such distinction with hosts, and the only reason they don't (or rarely) fuck their clients is because they want to keep selling them the dream of 'romance' and have their clients returning for more. Language plays a pivotal role in the denial of responsibility, focusing on what is not said, rather than what is said. Neither the host nor the hostess outrightly rejects the client, anything that the host doesn't (want to) do is for the benefit for the client, and it is up to the client to interpret his words. A point of interest could be the differences in the interpretation of the different cultures, with "Tokyo Girls", a documentary about foreign women becoming hostesses in Tokyo, the "cold but polite" metropolis directed by a Canadian woman, and "The Great Happiness Space" a documentary following a bunch of host "brothers" in Osaka, the "friendly yet aggressive" Americans of Japan, directed by an English man. In addition to possible differences in the outlook and vision of the directors, the differences in the language/dialect of Tokyo (Hyojungo, or standard japanese) and Osaka ("Osaka-ben", or, more generally, "Kansai-ben") can represent the manifestation of the different cultural attitudes between the people in Tokyo and Osaka. With Osaka-ben being a more casual, melodic and generally more straightforward language, it could result in Osakans - hosts in Osaka, in particular - being more outgoing and aggressive, 'fishing' for customers on the streets (they even have a name for it, nampa - which roughly translates into men flirting with/ picking up women). Tokyoites, on the other hand, are generally more reserved and polite, with the use of "standard / traditional" Japanese presenting hostesses in Tokyo as more refined, in addition to being prim and proper.

One of the clear differences between Tokyo Girls and The Great Happiness Space is that the former focused heavily on foreign, Western female hostesses in Japan as compared to the local male hosts in Japan. This cultural difference in the nature of the hostesses and hosts plays a part in revealing the roles that they play in the environment of Japanese clubs. In Tokyo Girls, the Western hostesses were a prime choice for the Japanese men as being seen with these "tall, blond, white-skinned" woman is viewed as something of prestige and desirability. Hence, Japanese men actually elevate status sense of power as the foreign hostesses seemingly act as a tool and marker of dominance and influence. The second difference I would like to highlight is the different ideals and constructs that each of the businesses rely on to make money and continue drawing back customers. In The Great Happiness Space, the male hosts appeal to and capitalise on the women's desire to feel loved and paid attention to, lavished and treat them like Queens. They appeal to the conventional stereotypes of what women desire in their lives and relationships and fulfil the emotional desires of women who patronise them by listening to them, talking to them and apparently helping to build their confidence. As such, even though the women spend lavish amounts of money on the hosts, they do not feel as if they are wasting their money because according to them "they are not buying boys, but buying time". In contrast, the female western hostesses in Tokyo Girls keep their interactions strictly business and do not form physical or emotional bonds, only keeping their minds on monetary bonds. Their ability to do this depends heavily on what their role and purpose is in being hostesses to the Japanese men. Using hostesses to make them 'feel like a man', the hostesses are there to facilitate smooth business transactions and discussions, and also have conversations with the men to increase their sense of masculinity and confidence. I suppose the purpose of the hosts and hostesses then, are fairly similar as they are both there to help men and women that patronise them assert their identities as men and women and fulfil their desires to be appropriately and lavishly treated as such, although they are done in very contrasting ways. The last difference I notice is the customer base that each of the clubs receive. In Tokyo Girls, the men patronising the western hostesses were all businessmen, or high ranking, influential members of society with a lot of money at their disposal and could lavishly spend on the hostesses in terms of not only drinks but gifts and large tips. In contrast, the customer base in The Great Happiness Space is ironically Japanese hostesses and prostitutes themselves that have come to get 'emotional healing' and relieve their stress due to the hurts and bruises they accumulate from the nature of their jobs. This highlights to me some sort of an interdependent relationship between the working community of hosts and hostesses in Japan because they actually need each other to continue in this line of business. Lastly, one of the similarities that cannot be ignored in both the foreign hostesses and Japanese hosts is the roles and identities they perform and construct for themselves, all for the purpose of pleasing their customers and fulfilling their ideal desires and wishes. In putting up this whole facade and taking on the identity, or even multiple identities, there is always the danger of 'losing the plot', and also losing one's true identity and sense of self and worth as they struggle to continue performing this role in order to gain monetarily.

One thing from the documentaries that really stood out to me was how transactional Japanese society was portrayed to be. In host and hostess clubs, clients pay for 'love' and 'affection' that they know isn't genuine. This starkly contrasts the importance of authenticity in the expression of sexuality and desire in other cultures, where a lack of authenticity could 'provoke anxiety' (Cameron & Kulick, 2003). While both hosts and hostesses appropriate the social semiotics of desire to forge an attraction towards their clients, they serve distinct purposes. Hostesses are paid to augment men's egos, to listen and encourage them in spite of what they say. The clubs in particular provide a platform to facilitate homosocial bonding, where men can relate to one another in an informal, non-hierarchical manner. Men are able to share a common topic and engage in 'breast talk', affirming their heterosexuality while enhancing social bonds. Conversely, hosts sell lies and dreams of 'love' to their clients, emotionally 'healing' women by providing them with the attention they desire. This is expressed linguistically through the compliments and sweet talk that they shower their clients with. Another striking difference between the two jobs lies in the relationships hosts and hostesses have with their clients. The hostess-client relationship appears to be more centered around the client, whereas the host-client relationship is (in the case of long-term clients) structured around the host. One hostess recounted her confusing experience with men, remarking that some clients would want her to smile and remain quiet, or simply teach them English. This type of interaction is a product of the asymmetrical linguistic division of labor embedded in the heterosexual contract, whereby men dominate the floor and women are expected to support them. On the other hand, women desire to engage in conversations with their hosts. Interestingly enough, both relationships are centered around men, which could be interpreted as a reflection of Japan's deep-rooted patriarchy and strict gender roles.

In my opinion, the hosting club culture in Japan is an interesting culture to look at. Tokyo girls are more known but it is rare to hear about the boys having a similar occupation as the girls. The thought of men having a similar occupation as the girls are just weird. This is because it is rare for men to cater to the women. However, the hosting club culture in Japan is an example where the male host has to cater to their female customers. The similarity of host and hostesses are that they both provide entertainment and attention that people are lacking. Therefore, people would go to these hosting club in sought of attention and love. In order to retain their job and prevent their customers from going other clubs, they have to perform stereotypical gender roles which include the way they speak. They will have to fake it till they make it. The hostesses are supposed to speak in a feminine way to cater to their customers. Meanwhile, the host displays masculinity by approaching the customers on the streets and giving advice to their female customers even if they do not have feelings for them. All host clubs have a ranking system. Thus, it is important to perform stereotypical gender roles when working at a hosting club in Japan to attract customers and retain their customers. All in all, Japan truly have an interesting culture.  

I think the most obvious similarity that stood out to me was the fact both Tokyo Girls and The Great Happiness Space hardly involved emotions of the hosts/hostesses – and their jobs were centred on monetary gains. Their services were paid for, as quoted by customers in The Great Happiness Space that they were “not buying boys, but buying their time”. A point of difference was in the purpose of these visitations. For the former, men usually patronize these hostess clubs to close business deals, where hostesses play a role in facilitating their business transactions with clients. Their identity as women comes into play as they serve to bond men by acting as a topic of discussion – sometimes objectified, although no sex is involved. On the otherhand, female customers visit host clubs to gain emotional healing from e.g. stress they face at work – and it would be interesting to find out that their customer base comes mostly from the same line of service i.e. hostess, show-dancer or even call girl and Fuzoku ‘prostitute’.  Both groups of customers enjoy the display of their power at these places – being served and having hostesses/hosts attend to their requests. Both occupations do coincide with 'gender-appropriate behaviour' (according to normative standards) as we can observe hostesses appealing with their femininity and hosts portraying masculinity through nampa 'picking girls up on streets' and accommodating to their customers' desired styles - be it humble and cool, or funny.

Hosts are usually locals, but we observe in Tokyo Girls, foreign women working as hostesses; which reveals a little about their cultural ideals – foreign white women ‘tall and slender’ being associated with prestige; customers sometimes also request for their silence and to just sit and smile.

Although sex is not required as part of the job, there are no hard rules as both hosts and hostesses do give in to occasional requests for such physical fulfilment. In The Great Happiness Space however, it was revealed that hosts usually don’t – for that would mean satisfying the main goal of their female customers’ visits. To make them long-term customers, both hosts and hostesses learn to provide their customers with pleasure and satisfaction without giving sex. They lie to keep the conversation going (in the case of hostesses – to boost men’s ego) and to weave “dreams and fantasies” (in the case of hosts); sometimes with the ambiguity of their language, and when the meanings behind ‘yes’ and ‘no’ (Tokyo Girls) are just not that clear anymore.

In both Tokyo Girls (TG) and The Great Happiness Space (TGHS), we can see how the hostesses and hosts both use language as a medium to appease their customers. In TG, one of the hostesses mentioned that the flow of conversations is usually the same with all her clients - work, life. She mentions how she has to adapt to the changes in topic and of her clients' behaviours accordingly since she is paid by the amount of alcohol her customers consumed.  Similarly, the hosts from the TGHS also has same conversations of similar topics with their clients. One of the hosts even mentioned that he has to change and adapt his personality according to the wants of his clients. In both cases, the hostesses and hosts adapt to their clients and adopt a style of speech to suit their clients' needs. However, the main difference between TG and TGHS is their clientele. In TG, their clients are mostly working men who require an outlet to relax after work or have business meetings. In such cases, these men go to the clubs to have the hostesses help boost their egos as they try to flaunt their wealth and socialise with other men. However, in TGHS, a common theme among their clients is that they require validation and approval from their hosts. Some even become dependent on it to the extent that they would turn to prostitution to finance their expenses at these bars. From this, we can see the differences in the outcome or the purpose of the discourses held at TG and TGHS. Furthermore, since sex is not part of their job scope, the hosts and hostesses share their tips on how they maintain a long-term relationship with their clients. In TG, the hostesses go on 'paid dates' with the clients twice a week and talk to them over dinner. In the video, the girls pretend to remember or lie about bits of details to make their clients feel special. This often helps them earn more money or luxury gifts if their clients are generous. On the other hand, in TGHS, the hosts tend not to have sex with clients whose aim is to have sex with them. They will also put on an act to seem more tired or sad in order to gain sympathy and make them spend more money in a more expensive booth or shorten their time with them. In this way, the hosts can prolong the relationship and earn more money or shorten their time with customers that they are tired of. As such, in both cases, the hosts and hostesses use different techniques to maintain a long-term relationship with their clients and gain more benefits in their careers.

 

The idea of getting easy money is attractive but exactly how ‘easy’ is it for these hosts and hostesses. They go to work to ‘sell dreams’ and believe that it should be ‘nothing about me’ and all about my clients. While both slug their guts out in the name of fulfilling the certain desire or dream of their clientele, their gender or ‘sexuality’ plays an essential part in their approach to satisfying their clients.

Firstly is the act of ‘hunting.’ While the Tokyo Girls remained (docile) within the circumference of their workplace, the male hosts have recorded actively in pursuit for ladies on the streets. It is also interesting to note that this idea of man playing a more active role is reduplicated in Tokyo Girls in which the male clients would be the one calling them up for dinner and stuff while. This may be linked to the gender stereotypes of men as the aggressive pursuer; similar to the penetrator and the penetrated? We shall now look at the background of the clientele. While the males who visit the Tokyo girls come from a rather diverse background, some prestigious- like educators. The ladies featured in The Great Happiness Space were either prostitutes or club hostesses. To me, it seems like a case of having ‘same birds flock together’ in which the ladies seek refuge and comfort with men of ‘similar background’ who would understand where they come from and ‘accept’ them for who they are. It is also noticeable that the female customers had higher mentions of falling in love and having an emotional investment towards their favorite male hosts. In other words, the female clients accept the love they think they deserve- which they feel are in these male hosts.

However as daylight approached, we realize that they are not at all different. They are all living behind their respective masks. As they end their shift and reach out for the comforts of their bed, both express the need to love and yearned to be loved - fo’ real. 

Against the backdrop of the hosting club culture in Japan with a comparison of the two documentaries - Tokyo Girls and The Great Happiness Space, there are a handful of similarities and differences which I will discuss in detail with references from Cameron and Kulick (2003).

In view of the similarities, it is clear that the hosting club culture works in a way that emotions are uninvolved such that the hosts and hostesses are monetarily driven by the high paying industry, where a lot of their work revolves around using language as a medium to entertain, bring comfort and provide companionship to their clients. Interestingly, through the use of language in this context, the hosts and hostesses are seen to perform their stereotypical genders. In Tokyo Girls, the hostesses adopt feminine interactional styles like high-pitched voice, politeness and being encouraging toward their clients’ masculinities. While in The Great Happiness In Space, the hosts adopt masculine interactional styles like assertive talk and being very direct since their clients prefer them to enact a certain form of masculinity. This implies that the hosts and hostesses will have to feed the desires of their clients and evidently, inter-relations between language and sexuality play out in a complex way where desires must be fed, for returning clients are crucial in their line of business.

In light of the differences, we can see that it lies in the clientele and the purpose of their visitations. In Tokyo Girls, the clients are predominantly businessmen attempting to secure business deals, where the hostesses will come into picture by facilitating their business transactions, while the clients forge homosocial bonds amongst friends and fellow business partners. Hostesses are engaged to accept, reflect and augment the men's egos, whilst listening and providing encouragements at all times. Additionally, these clients are also able to share a common topic through their engagement in 'breast talk', a form of banter that reaffirms their sense of masculinity to make them ‘feel like a man’, where they can relate to one another in an informal, nonhierarchical way. Conversely, in The Great Happiness in Space, female clients visit host clubs to gain ‘emotional healing’ and relieve their stress from work as hostesses, prostitutes and such. Expressed linguistically through compliments, sweet talk and endearments, the hosts sell lies and dreams of ‘love’ to their clients, providing them with the attention they desire. Cultural difference is another distinction where the hostesses in Tokyo Girls are foreign Western women associated with prestige and desirability for being tall, blond, slender and white-skinned as compared to the local hosts in Japan. Here, the foreign hostesses are viewed as a symbol of status and power by these Japanese male clients.

 

Generally, it is known that sex is not part of the hosting club culture and this is exactly how hosts and hostesses take advantage of the situation in maintaining a long-term relationship with their clients. In Tokyo Girls, the hostesses lie to keep the conversation going and consistently make the effort to boost their clients’ egos. Whereas in The Great Happiness Space, the hosts will likewise attempt to provide their clients with pleasure and satisfaction without satisfying the main goal of their clients’ visits (sex) by weaving dreams of ‘love’ and fantasies. In other words, these monetarily driven hosts and hostesses tend to adopt a variety of techniques in maintaining a long-term relationship with their clients to thrive in the hosting club culture in Japan.

The job of hostesses in Tokyo Girls and the job of hosts in The Great Happiness Space are similar in many ways. Both the hostesses and the hosts are working for monetary purposes. Also, they are both valued by the way they make their customers and clients feel, and they are expected to make their customers feel good and happy. The nature of the job of both the hostesses as well as the host is to create a fantasy world or 'dream world' that the clients desire. These fantasies are being created to draw their customers in, be it men or women. The clients will continue to pay for these fantasies, and that is how they earn money through providing these services. Also, both jobs require them to use language to please their clients. They say things to boost their customers' ego and masculinity or to make them feel loved and good about themselves. One distinct difference between the two is that in Tokyo Girls, the hostesses are generally hired for business purposes whereas, in The Great Happiness Space, the hosts help to heal the clients' emotional stress. In Tokyo Girls, white girls are seen as prestigious partners, and could boost one's masculinity and capability when they are seen with one. In The Great Happiness Space, the hosts are required to behave and act like the ladies' ideal types in order to get them to like them.

From the two documentaries, it can be seen that hosting club culture in Japan is largely expressed through language use. To ensure their clients return, both hosts and hostesses are to provide service of satisfaction and pleasure without giving sex. Both hosts and hostesses are not expected to have any sexual relations and emotions are hardly involved; they are there to entertain and bring comfort and companionship to their clients. Language then becomes a powerful tool that drives and gets the job done: as a host sell the 'dream' and emotionally 'heal' while hostesses augment their client's egos - as mentioned in Cameron and Kulick (2003) where hostesses are there to make them feel manlier. Both hosts and hostesses adopt a speech style to suit the desires of their clients. They are expected to perform their genders stereotypically, with hosts adopting a masculine conversational style such as being direct and assertive (eg. when offering advice or as quoted by one host: to 'scold'), while hostesses adopt feminine features.

Against the backdrop of the hosting club culture in Japan with a comparison of the two documentaries - Tokyo Girls and The Great Happiness Space, there are a handful of similarities and differences, which I will discuss in detail with references from Cameron and Kulick (2003). In view of the similarities, it is clear that the hosting club culture works in a way that emotions are uninvolved such that the hosts and hostesses are monetarily driven by the high paying industry, where a lot of their work revolves around using language as a medium to entertain, bring comfort and provide companionship to their clients. Interestingly, through the use of language in this context, the hosts and hostesses are seen to perform their stereotypical genders. In Tokyo Girls, the hostesses adopt feminine interactional styles like high-pitched voice, politeness and being encouraging toward their clients' masculinities. While in The Great Happiness Space, the hosts adopt masculine interactional styles through 'picking girls up on streets' and accommodating to their clients' desired styles since their clients prefer them to enact a certain form of masculinity. This implies that the hosts and hostesses will have to feed the desires of their clients and evidently, inter-relations between language and sexuality play out in a complex way where desires must be fed, for returning clients are crucial in their line of business. In light of the differences, we can see that it lies in the clientele and the purpose of their visitations. In Tokyo Girls, the clients are predominantly businessmen attempting to secure business deals, where the hostesses come into picture by facilitating their business transactions, while the clients forge homosocial bonds amongst friends and fellow business partners. Hostesses are engaged to accept, reflect and augment the men's egos, whilst listening and providing encouragements at all times. Additionally, these clients are also able to share a common topic through their engagement in 'breast talk', a form of banter that reaffirms their sense of masculinity to make them 'feel like a man', where they relate to one another in an informal, nonhierarchical way. Conversely, in The Great Happiness Space, female clients visit host clubs to gain 'emotional healing' and relieve their stress from work as hostesses, prostitutes and such. Expressed linguistically through compliments, sweet talk and endearments, the hosts sell lies and dreams of 'love' to their clients, providing them with the attention they desire. Cultural difference is another distinction where the hostesses in Tokyo Girls are foreign Western women associated with prestige and desirability for being tall, blond, slender and white-skinned as compared to the local hosts in Japan. Here, the foreign hostesses are viewed as a symbol of status and power by these Japanese male clients. Generally, it is known that sex is not part of the hosting club culture and this is exactly how hosts and hostesses take advantage of the situation in maintaining a long-term relationship with their clients. In Tokyo Girls, the hostesses lie to keep the conversation going and consistently make the effect to boost their clients' egos. Whereas in The Great Happiness Space, the hosts will likewise attempt to provide their clients with pleasure and satisfaction without satisfying the main goal of their clients' visits (sex) by weaving dreams of 'love' and fantasies. In other words, these monetarily driven hosts and hostesses tend to adopt a variety of techniques in maintaining a long-term relationship with their clients to thrive in the hosting club culture in Japan.

In looking at the host clubs from both films, it is clear that one key similarity is how hosts are very aware and deliberate in using language to carry out their jobs. In “The Great Happiness Space”, male hosts are seen using pick up lines on women in the streets, with one particularly interesting utterance that went along the lines of “you can toy with us, you can have us”. This subversive statement sets the stage for the intimate relationship that could transpire. Apart from their excessive man-scaping, language is a primary means in which they present themselves to their potential clients. When interviewed, the male hosts reveal that the first stage of relationship building with their customers start with “cute gestures” and the documentary showed male hosts flirting with clients. The second stage was to scold their female clients and “telling them what needs to be told”. Their conversations now shifted to providing good advice for the girls and almost “keeping it real” with them. In “Tokyo Girls”, a telling incident that highlighted the importance of language in their self-portrayal was during a candid interview in one of the dressing rooms. Giving the interview in a lacklustre manner and airing her dissatisfaction with her male clients, she immediately adopted an enthusiastic and cheerful tone when taking an unexpected call from the very clients she was just complaining about. Cameron and Kulick (2003) further stress that the hostess has to use language to ‘accept, reflect and augment’ the male client. Clearly, language is a crucial device in initiating, maintaining and navigating this host-client relationship fraught with sexual tensions and intimacy.

 

A difference between the settings of both host clubs is perhaps the desires that the host has to fulfil. The male hosts leverage on emotions, sharing that “if she falls in love, she is hooked”. Trying to meet the needs and forming a ‘special’ bond with each individual client is high on the agenda for the male hosts. Further explaining that “all girls can be princesses”, it is reflected in the personal nature of their conversations and how girls will buy private booths to have a one-on-one conversation with their male host. For female hosts, their male clients are looking to be reinforced and have their egos boosted. Even though she is the object of desire, Allison (1994) has pointed out that her primary role is to ‘smooth the conversational path between men’, making them feel more masculine in front of their peers. As such, both host clubs pander to the different desires of their clients and it is a dominant influence on the discourse used by the hosts themselves.

For both documentaries, it is evident that both groups appeal to the opposite sex by performing their gender through language. The female hostesses are expected to perform as stereotypically Japanese , even though they are mostly Caucasian. They adopt stereotypes such as being quiet and demure, and are encouraged to boost men's ego by being a form of 'conversational lubricant'. However, the male hosts are not expected to behave the same way. They attract their customers in mostly aggressive ways, chasing after their female customers and hitting on them. During customer interactions, the male host mention starting off with compliments, then gradually starting to scold them, as though they are really close and 'lecturing them'. The difference between the male and female hosts in this situation is that the female hosts are not expected to act as though they are their customers' girlfriends, while the male hosts are expected to act as though they are their real boyfriends. The female hosts mention that they understand that their clients are there to relax and relieve stress, and that they should not add on to their stresses, but encourage them and boost their ego. The male hosts, though, mention that their customers are there to fall in love, so they have to cater to those emotional needs by allowing them to live the illusion of having a perfect boyfriend. As mentioned by Cameron and Kulick (2003), the purpose of the hostesses are to facilitate bonding between men. However, as seen in The Great Happiness Space, the purpose of the hosts are not to facilitate bonding between women, but to provide an emotional crutches for the women. This shows the different purposes of speech being performed by the different genders. The similarity though, is that both sides are reaffirming their customer's performance of their gender. The hostesses use speech to make the men feel more masculine and more powerful, while the hosts use their speech to encourage the woman's femininity and make them feel as though they are being taken care of.

One similarity in both documentaries, is the host and hostess' uses of language to portray their stereotypical gender roles. . In Tokyo Girls, these hostesses adopted more feminine linguistic styles while in interaction with their clients (like constantly agreeing with their male client). While in The Great Happiness Space, the male hosts endorsed linguistic style that likened to be more powerful or dominant, like offering advice to their female customers so that the ladies will think the hosts care about them. Another similarity is that hosts or hostesses in these documentaries admittedly have to constantly lie in order to keep these 'dreams' alive for their clients. By constantly emphasizing on what these clients want to hear, they slowly developed feelings for these hosts/hostesses, and that would be when they are hook onto 'living in these dreams'. Feelings and emotions of their clients are exploited, encouraging them to spend more money on these hosts and hostesses by constantly coming back to them. From here we can see how these hosts/hostesses have used language to manipulate their customers and benefiting themselves financially.   One difference in these documentaries is through these interactions between the hosts/hostesses and their clients, different aspects of gender of the clients are being realised. In Tokyo Girls, obvious 'gender asymmetry' (Cameron and Kulick, 2003) is reflected. Male clients, in this case, do not need to process what their hostess have said. However the hostesses have to constantly perform their gender through language and by deploying such strategy, the clients' masculinity are constantly enforced. These hostesses also as noted by Alison (1994) are present to facilitate the conversations between their male clients. On the other hand, in The Great Happiness Space, both the host and the female client are performing their gender linguistically while instead of facilitating the conversation between women, they touched on the emotions aspect of the clients. Some female customers, especially the Fuzokus, are seen to 'buy the time' of these hosts- so they can talk with them and serve as a outlet of stress relief for them and to be able to genuinely talk about their emotions which they feel that their hosts may likened to them given the circumstances.

The main similarities between Tokyo Girls and The Great Happiness Space is the importance of spoken language in the jobs of both the female and male hosts. To both the male and female hosts, their job involves “healing” their socially- or romantically-deprived customer by weaving dreams out of sweet nothings: common topics for conversation include work or everyday life, and even personal issues. By providing their customer with a listening ear and simulating a relationship with an attraction person for their customer, the hosts and hostesses stand to make a profit as the simulations they create ensure that the customer gets hooked on the attention and willingly pay for more. However, there is a stark difference in the tone and usage of language between the hosts of either gender. For the female hosts, one of them mentions that sometimes her customers tell her to keep quiet, implying that perhaps they expect her to act more like the “ideal” Japanese woman, demure and shy, allowing for the male to speak more while all she is allowed to offer is her attention and acknowledgement. She adds on that other customers “want to learn English, not about your life”. This does show that these Canadian women are seen as exotic, and one of the motivations for many customers is to learn English, a language with ever-growing prestige. Being able to hold a conversation over English over wine with a beautiful Caucasian woman would certainly provide customers with a (false) sense of sophistication and accomplishment. However, these male customers do not seek sexual favours. We see that they are mostly businessmen, or at the very least just office clerks. These men know that soliciting prostitution services would only hinder their reputation among their family and colleagues since it is looked down upon in society, so they stay away from doing so.

The main difference I picked up between the hosts and hostesses was the kind of services they provided for their clients. While the hostesses were there to "accept, reflect, and augment'" the man, as was mentioned in our textbook, the hosts shown in the documentary were primarily there to satisfy the emotional desires of women. It was interesting how both hosts and hostesses were leveraging on their gender identities and performing these stereotypical gender markers. Specifically, I observed that the hostesses performed more passive roles -- they generally agreed with whatever the men were saying and were there to listen rather than to initiate conversation and men were not expected to reciprocate or respond to such affections and flattery as they are in the position of power, particularly in the Japanese culture. On the other hand, male hosts tended to be more aggressive in their approach with the women. They would actively go outside the clubs pursuing women and encouraging them to come into the host clubs. Moreover, they also enacted signs of masculinity like walking the girls out, taking care of them, and giving them advice. We can thus see that while both hosts and hostesses are performing their traditional, stereotypical roles of men and women, they are also there to cater to the needs of their clients as people of opposite genders.  

In my opinion, the hosts and hostesses of Japan has a few things in common, with one being their motivation to earn a lot of money. Money is the one in power here, and they would put up a facade just to make their clients spend more. Both hosts and hostesses sell a fantasy, where by someone is always willing to entertain, and to listen to whatever the client has to say. Their speech styles and interactions conform to the client's needs. Both are also expected to perform their stereotypical gender roles to boost the ego of their clients. In Tokyo Girls, the hostesses featured are all white. They are seen as exotic, and they confer a sense of power to their Japanese clients. As mentioned in the documentary, by having a white girl by their side, Japanese men elevate their status. In general, hostesses are objectified, and the sex talk they indulge in emphasizes the gender imbalance. The hostesses are seen as weak, and the men has the pleasure of dominating. This also inflates the male ego. In The Great Happiness Place, there is still a tinge of dominance by men. However, this is because the clients turn to their Hosts for advice, and simply just want to be treated as princesses. This princess dream is what the Hosts sell. The client then starts to become obsessed with the Hosts, spending ridiculous amounts of money and keeps coming back for more. They crave the masculinity that the Hosts portray - and the Hosts continue to sell these lies, no matter whether they personally like the client or not. In my opinion, the Hostess and Host culture in Japan is one built on lies - be it on the part of the Hostess/Host, or on the client. The clients are blinded by the fantasy, and the Hostesses/Hosts are blinded by the money. This seems to be somewhat a downward spiral for all parties. But I admit that this is a very interesting part of the Japanese culture, just who am I to judge?

Both documentaries portrayed and showed how important discourse can be, especially when it comes to being hosts and hostesses, when one has to use language to earn an income. In Tokyo Girls (TG) and The Great Happiness Space (TGHS), hostesses and hosts are required to not only play on gender stereotypes, but carefully construct their speech mannerisms in a way that will attract and appease their clients. The main difference between the two documentaries is the nature of discourse in TG and TGHS. Specifically because their clients are different, wherein the hostesses' clients in TG are males while hosts' clients in TGHS are female, the discourses are then constructed to target their clients. In TG, hostesses are there as a listening ear or as a trophy for their male clients' to show off (to other males). They display a much more passive demeanour, and come across as more submissive because their job is to pay the clients' compliments and agree with whatever they are saying. On the other hand, the male hosts in TGHS are more dominating and aggressive. They play on selling women a fantasy of a love life, and they do it through their interaction style that denotes masculinity. One example would be when they give advice to their female client or when they walk the lady out of the club and hail a cab for her, it invokes the idea of gentlemanliness and masculinity that appeals to their female clients. Both documentaries though constantly show that in the Japanese culture, hostesses and female clients alike, are meant to act in a more docile and feminine manner while hosts and male clients interact in a manner that shows their masculinity and in a way which upplays their ego. This image in the club aligns to roles the genders are expected to play in their culture, so much so that even though the hostesses in TG are White, they have to conform to societal expectations still.

In both documentaries, the hosts and hostesses are expected to perform their gender through the use of language in accordance with the norms of Japanese society. For instance, expressing differences in opinion is sometimes frowned upon (as it may cause conflict), unlike in Western society, where it is the norm. This is reflected in the behaviour and language use of the hostesses, whose job involves being encouraging and agreeable to the businessmen they entertain. While the hostesses in the documentary are foreign, they are still expected to play a largely passive role in the exchanges - to "accept, reflect and augment the man" (Cameron and Kulick, 2003). The men who visit them do so in order to feel powerful and desired (and so a focus is placed on their heterosexuality) by these women, who are often exoticised and objectified. By doing so, the men bond in a way that is similar to the creation of an in-group and an out-group (men and the hostess, respectively). Conversely, the main role of the hosts for their female customers is to perform emotional labour rather than for the purpose of business or homosocial bonding. The hosts are expected to cater to the customers' desires by being the ideal guy, however, they play a more active role by complimenting the customers and directing the conversation, unlike hostesses, which again reflects the gender expectations present in Japanese society.

When we compare these two films, there are a lot of similarities that exist about the job-scope of the hosts and hostesses. Hosting is a form of “water business” (Cameron & Kulick 2003: 63-65). This means that the income received by hosts and hostesses are instable and vary from day-to-day basis. Their income amount depends very much on how much they can drink or talk and make their customers drink or spend on them. For hosts, they would blatantly go out onto the streets to pick up ladies (“nampa”). Ladies who are interested would follow the hosts back to the clubs. Hence, other than having a likeable appearance, the skill to make a strong impression through their pick-up lines are vital too. As for hostesses, they may call up their customers to ask if they would like to bring them out for dates (“dohan”). Clubs earn commissions from dohan and the hostesses get to enjoy dining and shopping experiences with the customers.

Although the customer base for hosts and hostesses is different, what they desire is generally similar. Both films revolve around the word “dream”, which is precisely what customers are seeking out for from these hosts and hostesses. These “dreams” are desires of different forms. Male customers are mostly businessmen, who come to hostess clubs for work or personal reasons. They could be trying to build relationships with their clients (Cameron & Kulick 2003: 63-65), or simply to seek emotional refuge and break free from stress at work or home. Female customers are mostly prostitutes (“fuzoku”) or call girls. They go to host clubs to seek acknowledgement and attention, which are something they could not get while servicing men during their work. To build up their “dreams”, customers would try to show their best side to impress the hosts and hostesses. It could be flaunting their strengths, talents or wealth. To play along with the customers’ “dreams” or “fantasy”, hosts and hostesses would always compliment their customers to show that they are “attracted” to these qualities shown. When talking to customers, they must engage in the conversations attentively. Hosts would normally listen to the working or life woes of their customers and provide advices. Hostesses would never touch on topics related to customer’s work or wife. Even if the topic is boring or offends the hosts or hostesses in some ways such as “breast talk” (Cameron & Kulick 2003: 63-65), they cannot show direct signs of resistance, rejection or unhappiness since they are getting paid by these customers. In fact, hosts and hostesses must master the art of subtle refusal. This applies when they may be taken advantage of physically by their customers too. The talk between customers and the hosts or hostesses is like a mind game. Both sides may know what each other ultimately desire, but they do not satisfy each other immediately. Customers seek for hosts or hostesses’ attentions. Hence, they would shower them with gifts or open more bottles to financially worship them. They would use means of deceiving to say or show how much they “love” or favour the hosts or hostesses, in hopes of getting their ultimate desire (i.e. sexual or emotional) fulfilled. However, they may not be doing this only to one host or hostess since they do hop around various clubs. On the other hand, hosts and hostesses would deceive and act to keep the game ongoing and have the customers hooked on to them for as long as possible. It is this idea of hoping for further develop of their desires, this idea of “maybe”, that keeps enticing and making these customers come back. This two-way game talk of deceiving and transaction usually makes both parties sceptical of what each other say. However, this does not stop customers from spending money to have an enjoyable time with the hosts and hostesses.

In this path of money-making, hosts and hostesses do get lost sometimes. For the hosts, they may become distrusting to what people say and believe that they may never find someone to settle down with. For hostesses, in order to drink more, they may spend their earnings to rely on drugs. While trying to excel in this job of deceiving or pleasuring people, they may lose their true selves ultimately since they are always using a pretended speech.   

The most obvious difference between these two films is that “Great Happiness Space” takes on the perspective from local Japanese hosts. However, in “Tokyo Girls”, the perspective is from foreign Western ladies working as hostesses in Japan. Thus, there is bound to be some cultural differences. For example, these foreign ladies who are used to being straightforward in their home countries need to adapt to Japanese’s culture of being mild and endearing to cater to men’s desires of being masculine (Cameron & Kulick 2003: 63-65). In general, Japanese men are seen as respectable or admirable if they could have a blonde lady beside them. This form of “exotic possession” builds up the ego of men. This applies to how foreign men are interested in geishas too. Japanese businessmen like to interact with foreign hostesses to flaunt or practice their foreign languages. Thus, hostesses who knew more than one language (i.e. English) are more popular.

Hosts and hostesses took up the job due to several reasons as well. Based on the films, the common reason among hostesses is to earn fast money to do whatever they want after that. For hosts, the reason could be more than just money. It could be their pure interest in girls. Hence, they want to make a change or experience for themselves. As mentioned above, hostess clubs act more as a venue for men to bond together. However, female customers seek for more of an individual pleasure to have fun. In the hostess clubs, we can see that male dominance is constructed or built on through the interactions between customers and hostesses (Cameron & Kulick 2003: 63-65). A distinct role-switch is seen in host clubs where female customers are the demanding ones and hosts must cater to their desires. However, where hostesses are expected to be subtle with customers, hosts can “scold” their customers. Female customers do not mind being “scolded” as they see this as a form of love and care from the hosts. For hosts, it is fine if they had sex with their customers. However, hostesses primarily talk to customers and do not engage in sexual activities with them. Those who do may risk getting fired by their mama-sans.  

In conclusion, the job of hosts and hostesses is very difficult and stressful as they need to adjust and adapt to different customers’ liking. Their job is not just trying to look good and dress well but involves the profound art of talking. This industry would probably always be on demand as customers seek for a place to rest, to be understood and to heal emotionally.

In "Tokyo Girls" and "The Great Happiness Space", we see that while both the males and females work as 'hosts' or 'hostesses' in the host and hostess clubs, there are many differences in the expectations of the two genders. Firstly, we see that the male hosts are all Japanese, while the female hostesses consist of a large number of western, or 'white' females. 'White' girls are highly regarded in Japan, and are seen as 'exotic', and the Japanese are proud to be seen together with these western women. In a sense, the white girls are some sort of 'trophy girls' to the Japanese men. White men, on the other hand, do not hand such a status to the Japanese women, and therefore the host clubs do not have any western male hosts. We also see that the main roles and objectives differ between the hosts and hostesses as well. While both hosts and hostesses job is to provide their customers emotional 'healing', the hostesses role is also to help their businessmen customers in their business transactions when the business partners visit the hostess clubs together. On the other hand, then hosts' main objective is to let their female customers 'have fun' and enjoy themselves. As such, the interaction of the hostesses with their male customers consist mostly of talking, while the hosts' interactions with their female customers involves a lot of partying and drinking. One prominent difference between the hosts and hostesses is the sexual expectations of them. For the hostesses, they have to follow a very strict rule of not engaging in sex with any of their customers. If they are caught having had sex with any of the customers, they are immediately fired from their job. The hosts, on the other hand, openly have sex with their customers, and the customers are aware of this fact as well. The perception is that it is okay for the hosts to have sex with the customers, while it is considered abominable for the hostesses to engage in sex with customers. This shows a great contrast in gender expectations in Japan, where males are to be good at sex while females need to remain 'pure' and untouched.