ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the narratives of two Russian female migrant workers who worked in Japanese hostess clubs in the 1990s. It demonstrates how these women benefited from Japan's affluence, which allowed them to earn money through selling their "erotic charms", and how they attempted to present this demeaning work as an achievement. The chapter argues that these women's self-representations should be seen in relation to a discriminative gender order and as being nothing more than constructions that helped the women to overcome the denigration and dehumanisation that they were faced with and to establish their respectability. Some Russian women found the Japanese example enticing and ventured to work in Japan. Hostess clubs appeared in Japan around the time of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, and they burgeoned during the period of Japan's economic growth. Women were invited to make the socialisation process more pleasant, and in this way hostess clubs became a part of Japanese corporate culture.
