Customer Reviews

90-Day Geisha: My Time as a Tokyo Hostess

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Considering Chelsea Haywood is living in one of the most exciting cities in the world, her story about her time working in a hostess bar is actually kind of lame. I think there are other hostesses out there who would have far more interesting stories to tell about themselves and their clients than what Chelsea did and I found myself more interested in her co-workers -who seemed to have much much more intriguing stories to tell - and less interested in her.

Admittedly, I liked the book until I read how she and her husband decided that she should write a book about being a Tokyo hostess before she even got to Tokyo - meaning her whole reason of going there and living the life was all for the purpose of selling a book. It seemed so contrived. I know there are girls out there who work in this job because circumstances brought them there, and I think reading about those girls would have made for a more honest story.

I was quite disappointed as the blurb on the back of the book made it out to seem she was constantly rubbing shoulders with all sorts of notorious figures while living the high life but this isn't quite true. I could relate to her insights into what it's like to live in Tokyo and the strange contradictions which surround you, as I lived there for a while myself - and anyone who has spent time there will have a million more interesting stories of their own about the culture and the people. Therefore, Chelsea Haywood's story is hardly groundbreaking.

Wikipedia defines a geisha as traditional, female Japanese entertainers whose skills include performing various Japanese arts such as classical music and dance.

Chelsea Haywood was not a geisha, she was a hostess. She tells you in the begining of the book that she was only trying this job because she wants to write a book. For profit.

Before I read the book, I was really interested to see where her journey was going to take me a reader. Halfway through the book I realized I wouldn't like her as a person if I knew her. She writes that her customers constantly tell her how wonderful, beautiful she is. She shows distane for newer hostesses that come along like she's a professional who's been doing it for years when she did it a total of 3 months, and acts like she is so much better then the girls who come from the Eastern European countries. She begins to break the one major rule "do not fall for the clients, its all a game" and then wants us to feel for her when she finds out it is. She has the husband who she's soooo in love with, he's her rock that came to Japan with her only to flirt with the idea of divorce.

I finished the book thinking "why did I waste my time?"

This book feels a bit like a stunt, or a reality show. A young attractive model and her husband decide to go to Tokyo, where she'll work as a hostess in the nightclub district for 3 months, and report on what it was like. Her hostess job is to encourage the men who frequent these clubs to order drinks, stroke their egos, and, if possible, get them to take her on dates for which the club is paid a fee.

A strange thing for a newly married couple to embark on, but nevertheless...

Chelsea does a decent job of reporting on the strange culture of the clubs, with the enforced happiness and heartiness. She quickly is lured by a rather sinister figure who she finds attractive into doing drugs, and this seems to challenge her sense of herself and her marriage. But it all feels a bit like a made up drama.

It was a quick read, and I found it mildly interesting, but there was a strange voyeur aspect to the reporting, even as the author claims she was drawn into this life quickly and far more deeply than she expected.

Other than the glaring error in the title of this little memoir (the author is certainly no geisha), this occasionally interesting, but more often than not vacuous, narcissistic and rambling account of life as a Tokyo hostess makes for a oddly paradoxical read.
The premise is certainly interesting enough, but the way the author went about her little foray into the world of working in a geijin hostess bar (with her newish husband excruciatingly in tow), and the way she recounts what went on (if you took out every time she wrote how someone was telling her how beautiful, fascinating, perfect, etc., she was - the book would be half as long) left much to be desired. Half way through the book, I found myself feeling increasingly sympathetic for the poor husband, who seems like a saint for putting up with her. That's not to say that there is not the occasional astute insight or well-turned phrase; but whether or not they are frequent enough to merit the long stretches of inanity, well - that will vary from reader to reader. If you enjoy Cosmo, this may be the book for you.
Expectations are the bęte noir of happiness. I'd expected to find an interesting and well written account of a subject that had aroused my curiosity while spending time in Japan. Instead, I found an addled, slightly jaded travelogue that never quite pierced the curtain, but did succeed in getting superficially tangled-up in it a bit.

First and foremost, it should be noted that the author does not spend any time as a Geisha (which is an entirely different cultural phenomenon), but is a hostess in a Tokyo club. For anyone not familiar, hostesses are women who work at clubs in Japan and are paid to make conversation, pour drinks, and generally make men feel cared for and welcome. To many outside of Japanese culture, this is a strange and interesting culture.

Haywood does her best to explain the ins and outs of this culture and give the reader a peek into what the system is really about. When the book really shines is when the author stays mostly out of the way and really just tells the reader about the people, places, and attitudes that drive the hostess industry in Japan. These parts of the book are interesting and informative.

Unfortunately, Ms. Haywood seems to get in the way of what could have been a great book. About halfway through the proceedings, the book starts to be less about her cultural experience, and more about the personal drama of it all. Don't misunderstand me, it would be disingenious of her to pretend the experience hadn't affected her, but these parts of the book turn sour fast. She spends a good portion of the end of the book pleading for sympathy from the reader for a plight that she has created.

All in all, this isn't a bad book. Unfortunately, it isn't a particularly good book either. If you have an interest in this part of Japanese society, you'll find some things of interest here, though I suspect there are better books on the subject.

As a woman working and living in Japan, I'm interested in reading about other women's experiences and life in Japan, which is why I bought this book. I did learn a bit about the hostess system and the customers, but that's about it. I found it really difficult to sympathize with her and was often annoyed when she put down the other girls working at the club and their reasons for working there. Their lives and story probably would have made a more interesting story. Also, she never mentions the lives of Japanese hostess and hosts. The world only revolves around her.

But the part that really bothered me was how the Japanese characters talked. Some of them sounded like Kim Jong-il from Team America. On page 201, she actually wrote "berry, berry crever-o." I almost threw the book across the room. I've been living in Japan for two years, and I've NEVER heard ANYONE talk like that before. Ever. Not even little kids learning English sound like that. Maybe she was trying to be funny, but she came across as ignorant. Did she really spend three months living and talking to other people in Japan? I find it hard to believe.

I enjoyed this book a lot. I found it very interesting and very entertaining.
However, from the mixed reviews on this site, I guess it's not for everyone!
So I advise reading Chelsea Haywood's 2-page Macleans interview, available online.
[Macleans is the Canadian equivalent of TIME Magazine.]
This interview is very complete and very representative of the book's contents.
If your curiosity is piqued, then you should definitely buy.
If not, then just forget it!
Cheers.

The writing is juvenile, I feel like I am reading a teenager's diary or blog. The dialogue is badly written, human communication is so much more important and interesting than the lines she decides to print (well it could be that perhaps I am expecting too much from her conversations). The depiction of human interaction was weak.

The character she creates of herself is worse than the ignorant lost girl in Lost in Translation, she enters the story not just lost but trying to defeat the system, she has an elitist attitude... She considers herself better than the trade, even though her normal occupation is modeling, which to me seems like a step down from hostessing in terms of the mind, energy, spirit, and work required to be successful (this is coming from someone who worked as a hostess as well).

She and her model boyfriend are just a typical boring couple. Their conversations are very soap-y and she gets off on the term husband, referring to her man as such despite still being engaged. Her experience with cocaine is not interesting and trip to Kyoto is simply yawn. She pretends to appreciate Japan but she does not understand much around her. She cannot speak or understand Japanese and her little mini-lessons on Japan are so boring I don't know why they were even included because anyone who would actually pick up and manage to read this book through must have an undying interest in Japan and Japanese culture, thus already know about the tourist things... or maybe not, maybe it is just the perfect 300 pages for all the people who loved the cover art and just want a shallow glimpse without the reality.

I liked the premise that Ms. Haywood purposefully went into the hostess world to write about it from the inside. I know many of the women who work there are doing so because they need employment and money, and they come from completely different backgrounds than mine. However, there is a utility in being able to see that world from a perspective I can relate to.

This book is one part take, one part analysis. You can tell that Ms. Haywood's mind was always on the psychology of the situation - both her own and her customers'. She is brutally honest about her own struggles making her way through the sake-but-are-they relationships, her fears from the dangerous fate some hostesses risk, and the way she maintained her marriage through this. I do wish that we had gotten a bit more insight about her husband, though. He seems a distant figure that we never quite understand, which hampers our ability to process her own emotions.

I feel like I understand this strange world better now, and understand the men that partake in it better than I could have otherwise. A lot of it still remains a mystery, and I think that is kind of the point.

The fact that the author's employment as a hostess (NOT a geisha, obviously) was a planned 90 day research trip for this book definitely removed some authenticity. I was more interested in the Swiss, British and Israeli girls she worked with, since this was their real lives. What were their stories? More interesting than the author's I bet.

She provides some good insight into how the clubs work, how and what the girls get paid, and what the Japanese customers are like.

Her "slipping over the edge, losing touch on reality" angle seems like a total fabrication just to add some drama to the book. Which it doesn't, it's the most boring part. She seems like a self-absorbed person that wouldn't be pleasant to know in real life.

The only hostess clubs I've ever been to in Tokyo were staffed by Japanese girls, and it was all fun and pleasant. The main thing I learned from this book is that I should check out an "international" club next time I'm Tokyo. :)

ps - it constantly annoyed me that she spelled "Okonomiyaki" (a common Japanese food) as "O-kone Miyake" - anyone that's been to a Japanese restaurant would know better, and she lived in Tokyo for three months.