The year I worked as a clerk in a les bar in Japan

Other girls: It is necessary to remind everyone of an ongoing cyber fact - opinions are being greatly diluted, and the scarcest thing is your adventure. Forget second-hand interpretations and tell us what's going on in the world with your own eyes. Young people, get moving and enter this society.

Here is the column # I was there at that time , inviting you to watch the girls’ personal experiences, observations and adventures. If this strikes your desire to share, please submit your contribution to biedegirls@yishiyise.com . It can be unique, it can be humorous, it has to be real, and preferably a little dangerous.

Today’s first-hand experience comes from wyq, a 25-year-old Japanese language worker who has studied and lived in Japan for more than a year. During this time, she worked as a clerk at a famous les bar in Japan. We talked with her about that life experience, the customers she met at the bar, the relationships she had, and the most unforgettable thing for her.

Q

▼

It all started when I accidentally bumped into Les Bar.

In March 2018, I came to Osaka to study abroad. I was still with my college girlfriend at the time, and we started a mobile pet-style relationship after we went abroad. Later, because of my own reasons (I was too pretentious), I kept bothering her, and because being in a foreign country was too difficult, she broke up with me.

The night I was broken up, I turned on my phone, searched for a highly rated Les bar on Google, and went there aimlessly.

The most amazing thing is that before going abroad or even after returning to China, I had never been to a domestic Les bar. I felt that the culture of domestic Les bars was not that simple and the atmosphere was average (of course, this may be my stereotype) ). But in Japan, first of all, bar culture is very popular. There are naturally many such shops and business is easier to do. So for me at that time, walking into a bar was a very natural thing.

There are two areas in Osaka with LGBTQ bars, referred to as "Minami Ward" and "Doyama Town". The southern area has more people, while Doyama Town is relatively niche. Although Wikipedia lists Doyama Town and Shinjuku Ni-chome as one of the major gay villages in Japan, its recognition is incomparable to Shinjuku Ni-chome in Tokyo (Tokyo is too international!). The bar I went to, W, is located in Doyama Town and is considered a niche within a niche.

I remember clearly the day I went there for the first time. There were not many people in the store, there was a cake in the middle, and there were customers celebrating birthdays here. The shop owner saw an unfamiliar and a little embarrassed young face, and jokingly said to me, why don't you two (me and the birthday guest) get together? I sheepishly sat down and joined in the chat.

That day, a guest ordered champagne for the birthday girl and invited everyone to drink it together. This was also the first time in my life that I drank champagne. It was about eleven o'clock and I had to catch the last subway train back. The birthday girl thoughtfully dropped me off at the subway station. I later learned that the store was mostly filled with regular customers, and I was like an outsider intruding into a very private space . They let me go back first to celebrate her secretly.

After that, I went there a few more times and gradually got to know the store manager N. Because I can speak English and Chinese, she found it very interesting. She asked me casually in a store once, "Would you like to try to be a store clerk?" I was studying in a language school at the time, and classes started very early. There were no classes at three o'clock in the afternoon. It was a perfect fit. I agreed without much thought, and somehow became a clerk in this bar.

There are many stores catering to the LGBTQ community in Doyama Town, and I have been to others, all with different styles. There are many shops where young people like to go and have fun. There are places where you can sing karaoke, play darts, and dance. In this kind of store, everyone has a lot of fun, is very noisy, and has a strong purpose, so it doesn't suit me.

The atmosphere of the store where I work is completely different from that of a "young store". The customers who came to the store were all older, much older than me at the time, about 30 to 40 years old, and some were even older. If you walk in alone, you may get laughed at, but you won't be talked to directly, because the relationship between people here is very measured. As a stranger in a store for the first time, you might feel a little left out (like the first time I crashed a birthday party), but a sense of boundaries is almost innate to the Japanese.

The store's business hours are from 7 or 8 pm to 2 am. I usually go there at 7 o'clock, collect the things that need to be packed, and start waiting for others to come. When I go to work, my job is usually to make beer, mix some simple wines, and then chat with the guests. Their kind of beer is neither canned nor bottled. It is made by machine, and the vat must be changed regularly and then frothed. Because I have a dull personality, and can even be said to be a bit socially anxious, many customers find it interesting that there is such a person working as a store clerk. The other shop assistants are more cheerful than me. Besides me, there are three others. One girl is a makeup artist, another is a hairstylist, and another is in the media. All four of our shop assistants are girls.

W Strictly speaking, it cannot just be regarded as a les bar, because the customer base of the store is quite wide. The owner N’s son is a vegetarian, so this bar also serves vegetarian food. Since there are very few vegan shops in Osaka, and her English is very good, she attracts many foreign customers. Some people may not necessarily be sexual minorities, but may just want to come to eat. Such guests are also welcome. There are some les bars in Doyama Town that restrict entry to only girls, but there are no restrictions here. In addition, the decoration of the store is in Jamaican style, which makes it look very rough and lively.

The guests who come here are special and ordinary at the same time

At first, I went there two to three days a week. Later, during holidays such as the end of the year, when the store manager was short of manpower, I would go there five days a week to help. With this frequency, I gradually became familiar with the customers who often come to the store.

The customers who come to the store are of all kinds, with very diverse identities and occupations. One customer was a ballet teacher. She was very beautiful and had a very good figure. She later became the girlfriend of the store manager. At first, I disliked her because I knew she had two children, so I thought she was just having fun. I even suspected that she was playing with the store manager's feelings . But after gradually getting to know her, I discovered that she was not what I imagined. She had always known that she was crooked since she was a child, but she liked children very much, so she wanted children. She and her husband have an open marriage. Although they live together, they do not live together. They always sleep in separate rooms.

When she fell in love with the store manager, the two of them had a very good relationship. Only after getting to know them did I realize that adults can have such passionate feelings, a passion that can be clearly felt even as a bystander. It's a pity that we didn't continue to be together for some unknown reason. Maybe it’s because love is too vigorous.

There was also a couple who opened a coffee shop near where I went to school. I went there often before I came to W, so I was very familiar with them. I later learned that they would also come to this bar. . I always thought they were a very ordinary couple. It wasn’t until I had a meal with them one time that I realized that the gentleman was transgender, but I couldn’t tell it at all. In fact, there are many such people in the store. They are not very public people and live ordinary lives like ordinary people .

In addition to running a bar, the store manager Nzi also holds movie screenings every week. Because there is no space in the store, screenings are usually held at a nearby venue to show some documentaries for which the copyright has been purchased. Most of the documentaries are very interesting, some are about the LGBTQ community, some are about society, women and families, and there are post-screening exchanges after the end. Many people attended the screening, including sexual minorities, university professors, and film lovers. Many of the bar's regular customers come to watch movies.

There is a Rainbow Festival in Kansai. At that time, we will go out to promote the store and meet friends in the sun. There are parades and performances at the festival. I have participated twice. There are many people, but most of them are foreigners, and there are relatively few Japanese.

It can actually be seen from this that Japanese people are quite cautious about coming out as gay publicly. Basically no one in their 30s and 40s comes out as gay publicly. After all, older people are more concerned about the people around them. worldly gaze. Same-sex marriage has not yet been legalized in Japan. Among same-sex couples, a system called partnership is implemented. Currently, 74 local governments in Japan have established same-sex couple registration systems, recognizing that same-sex couples are “equivalent to a marriage relationship.”

Although there are not many voices of discrimination on the surface in Japanese society, there are still many older people who cannot accept it because of Japan's age composition. The customers I met in the store felt that the entire environment was still very serious and not tolerant enough. Maybe I still have the conservative nature of East Asians in my heart!

After a year in language school, I met a professor of gender studies through a customer in his store. This professor has a foreign husband and a child, and he thinks he is transgender. I went to his laboratory for half a year and there were five or six students including me. My feeling is that their academic atmosphere is much better and their ideas are more open than in China. There are often forums and speeches for sexual minorities here.

About my relationship with another les bar owner

I even fell in love when I was in Osaka, and it can be said that it was thanks to my wife. She once recommended another small bar O to me. The store hadn't opened yet on the day I went there, and no one else was allowed in. But the store manager, Koko, was more casual and started chatting with me casually. The two of them got along just fine while chatting (hahaha!). There is a big age difference between us. I was born in 1997 and she was born in 1983. But when we are together, we almost don’t feel the age difference.

O is very different from the shop W where I work part-time. It is a very small shop. There is basically no space except for the bar counter that is surrounded by a circle. It can accommodate about ten people at most. The owners of the two stores are also very different. Nzi has a cheerful personality, and even the owners of other stores often visit W. And O, this store was opened by my wife who helped koko with money, because koko has a weird personality, a little alcoholic, and often drinks until he is unconscious, so that he lies on the floor of the store and falls asleep... (I have to fish for her every time) So O has always existed tepidly, and the business is barely passable. Compared to the bustle of W, this place is more suitable for a small gathering of very close friends.

In addition to running O, Koko also works part-time at a nearby livehouse. When there are performances, he usually comes to open the shop after get off work. koko is very fond of music, from indie rock to jazz folk, and the store has many records from her collection. She plays different music for everyone to listen to every day. Because she has good relationships with many bands, band members often come to drink.

Because of Koko's more self-centered personality, the guests attracted here are also very strange. In addition to band members, there are also many transgender people, as well as football and basketball players, etc. among the regular guests. Everyone has a special personality and can be called a unique human being. But gathering here, it seems that you have found a safe place where you can feel at ease. immersed in one's own inner world.

Koko and I moved in together not long after we got together. After about a year of being together, my mental state was not very good, and the house in Japan was very small, which made me feel very depressed. In addition, she also had alcohol dependence problems. We were two people who were not very "normal" together. , it is a kind of consumption for each other.

Close friendship is only for "night time only"

I met many friends through koko, but when she wanted to separate from me, I felt isolated and helpless. Although in theory I can go and hang out with other friends, the friends I met in the pub live their own lives during the day except at night. They are normal office workers, and it is difficult for them to have in-depth communication with each other. So I think the relationship between people in the pub is actually very subtle. Everyone lives a two-sided life. Although they can become very good friends with you, they are only for nights.

After working in a bar for a long time, another fact that cannot be ignored is that most of the customers in the bar have alcohol dependence problems. They often drink until they are unconscious, and they drink every day, making it impossible to imagine how they will go to work the next day. I guess in addition to status pressure, too much work pressure is also a factor. The so-called social animals, software engineers, caregivers, wealthy college students, illustrators, university professors... The guests are all kinds of, but the one thing that remains the same is that almost All had alcohol dependence issues. Because of the clear-cut character of the Japanese, it is even harder for them to become very close friends. Coupled with this "special" identity, many people can get drunk at night and pretend to be social people during the day to live independently without disturbing each other. , it’s as if each other has never appeared.

If there's one thing that's comforting in this kind of clear-cut, night-limited relationship, it might be the store manager's naughty wife. During the Chinese New Year, she would generously give us red envelopes and bonuses, and she would also give me gifts on my birthday. She knew that I loved Haagen-Dazs ice cream, so she once gave me 20 vouchers at once. In a foreign country, especially a country with a strong sense of boundaries, meeting such a tolerant person allowed me to see another side of this country. If I didn't know her, I wouldn't have such a rich life, and I might be very lonely.

Now, it has been more than two years since I left Japan. I once wanted to make a grand summary of life in Japan, but after much deliberation, I couldn’t come up with an answer that could be related to society and life. It was really just a magical experience of breaking into a foreign country and culture alone. Those who have come into contact with me, each concrete and vivid person, are the answers.

Note: The pictures in this article are provided by the author. To protect the privacy of the parties involved, W, O, Nzi and koko are all pseudonyms in the article.

// Author: Hey

// Editor: Zhao Si

BIE Other Girls is committed to presenting the exploration of all female perspectives, supporting the creation of female/queer artists, and building a platform for all feminist creators to express themselves freely and write HERstory together.

We believe in intelligence, admire creation, encourage questioning, and bring inspiration, wisdom and courage to every other girl with independent thinking, pioneering attitudes and diverse gender perspectives.

Official account/Weibo/Xiaohongshu: BIE other girls

BIE GIRLS is a sub-community of BIE Biede that covers gender-related content, aiming to explore things from the perspectives of females. Topics in this community range from self-growth, intimate relationships and gender cognition, all the way to technology, knowledge and art. We believe in wisdom, advocate creativity and encourage people to question reality. We work to bring inspiration, wisdom and courage to every BIE girl via independent thinking, a pioneering attitude and diversified views on gender.