Seven-Pack

Bar hostesses in Japan are a step down from geishas. They don't need to master the koto and shamisen, tea ceremony, flower arranging, or calligraphy. They do, however, provide Japanese businessmen with elements of female companionship which the men can't get, for societal reasons, from their own spouses.

Hostesses work in bars called nomiya (literally, "drinking place"), or, with charming illogic, sunakku (from the English word "snack"). Sunakku are presided over by mama-san who hire and fire at will. The mama-san may be a retired hostess who now owns her own bar.

Hostesses work long hours, because they are expected to start early in the day, telephoning their customers and trying to persuade them to drop by the bar. Or, even better, to take them out to dinner first. A firm dinner date ensures that the hostess can lure the customer to her own bar afterwards. She is only offering companionship, not sex....she must draw the evening out as long as possible by flirting in order to get the customer to run up a staggering bill. She must drink right along with him--the more she drinks, the bigger the bill--and either smoke or endure the profuse amounts of secondhand smoke in the bar.

Hostesses are tough cookies. They have to laugh at every joke, and perhaps tell a few of their own. They have to read up on the news or business or finance or whatever field their good customers are in so that they can make engaging conversation. They have to parry every groping advance from their drunken companions without seeming offended. Keeping an illusion of wide-eyed innocence night after night while sitting in a smoky dive wearing a dress slit up to here takes a certain amount of skill.

The uniform of the bar hostess is a tight silk dress or an equally tight suit. No kimonos here. Besides a sexy outfit and iron endurance, all a bar hostess needs is her seven-pack. Hostess Tomoko Kuroda elucidates:

But, you see, each hostess has her own standard equipment. Essentially the basics for any hostess are: lipstick, handkerchief, lighter, cigarettes, memo pad, pen, and mirror. The 'seven-pack' is what we call it.

A hostess might make two or three hundred dollars a night, plus whatever tips and freebies she can cajole from her customers. She might wheedle for makeup, clothes, or jewels--to make herself beautiful just for him, of course. Some girls come away from a stint as a hostess with cars, apartments, and such. Not a bad haul for the investment of one tight dress and a seven-pack.