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Comment by lmm | Hacker News Reader

A lot of english conversation in Japan functions as de-facto paid compansionship. It's not exactly a front for escorting, but it's not completely not that either. In the west there tends to be a clear sharp line between customer service and sex work, whereas in Japan there is much more of a sliding scale from paying by the hour to hang out in a bar with friendly bar staff, to having more flirty conversations with them, through clothed touching to what's essentially a strip club experience.

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15 years ago I was a student in Japan and worked a part-time job at one of these conversation places. One of the successful teachers put it best: "You're not a teacher, you're a chat show host".

You're doing entertainment first. A game here, a crazy story there. Nothing to challenging, people want to have a polite, entertaining experience. If they learn something along the way that's fine but they won't really care if they don't.

There was a wide range of students. Some serious, usually planning to study overseas in the future. Some people just there for a hobby or an outlet. There were a few people who came to offload their problems to someone who they felt was outside the normal social structure (and therefore not going to judge them). I think people in general felt they were much freer to speak using English rather than Japanese.

> I think people in general felt they were much freer to speak using English rather than Japanese.

That's true to my experience with Japanese ESL students (not in Japan). Some explicitly told me that themselves; many others had that vibe.

I likened it (and my later work a the token gaijin in a large company), as being a pet, or a zoo animal. Treated well, but never integrated. I was told that I could never be a manager in my company, because it would make Japanese people anxious to have a foreign boss.

The states does have breastauraunts like Hooters where you can watch the game and the bartenders and waitresses happen to be flirty and buxom, but they're compensated by tips instead of by the hour.

I almost mentioned Hooters, I think they're the exception that proves the rule - they're seen as unusual and seedy, whereas in Japan that's pretty much the norm for a bar.

"the exception that proves the rule" is such a terrible expression. I do not understand why people use it.

At some point I thought that it absurd on purpose but I had some people explaining me the rationale behind it (there is no rationale - if there is an exception it at best weakens the "rule")

It’s a folkism, but consider this: If a rule doesn’t have any exceptions, is it really a rule? If a rule doesn’t exist how could there be any exceptions?

The expression is referring to an implicit or unstated rule. Defining it is hard but people know when it has been broken. Hooters is an exception, the rule is, don't be like Hooters.

Thank you! I never understood the expression, but this explanation was immediately clarifying for me.

I see from Wiktionary that it was originally a legal concept, expressed in medieval Latin.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/exception_that_proves_the_rul...

Just as you say, the point is that a rule is implied by a specific exception, as in the example "free entry on Sundays", which implies the unstated rule "pay for entry on other days".

The exception weakens the rule, it's true, but may also reveal the rule.

‘Prove’ was historically used as a synonym for ‘test’, which gives the phrase quite a different meaning. Like how ‘result’ is now sometimes used to mean ‘positive outcome’, as in a football fan saying ‘we got a result’

This phrase only made sense when it was explained to me that it’d be better phrased as “the exception that proves the existence of the rule”.

(if there were no rule, there wouldn’t be any exceptions to it, or nothing would seem exceptional with respect to the (previously unstated) rule)

The norm for a bar in Japan is to be like Hooters?

Eh, what? This wasn't my experience at all. I didn't conduct a study, but I was in a good few bars over there, in three different cities. Can you elaborate on what you're referring to here?

Think the takeaway was more about the "seediness" aspect of Hooters do to it's being pretty exceptional/unusual in American dining culture.

Hooters is a pretty unique restaurant experience in the US and is therefore considered different/further from the norm and frankly by many seedy. If there were more places like Hooters in the US then this would probably not be true.

The comment was trying to explain that in Japan you have a lot of places that would be analogous to Hooters in the US...so it's not exceptional/not seedy. Maybe not quite the "norm" but common enough to not be really something that gets noticed or have a connotation like "seedy".

Japan has (had?) an exact analog to Hooters, namely "sexy izakayas" like Hanako, where pretty girls in very short skirts serve mediocre bar food. These were pretty much obliterated by COVID though, and were always a small niche.

Unlike the US, Japan has a highly visible and de facto legal sex industry, so if anything sexy izakayas are/were at the less seedy end of the scale.

In my experience a bar (not a pub/居酒屋, a バー) will frequently be a place that always has female staff working, where those staff will be wearing makeup and at least somewhat attractive clothes and expected to converse with customers. Not always - there are definitely bars focused on music or some hobby or particular kinds of drinks - but often enough that it's what I'd expect if you just said bar.

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