Interesting article from Mainichi
Japan's mid-Noughties love affair for all things South Korean appears to be on the wane, except when it comes to the pleasures of the flesh, where feelings are as lustier as ever and Japanese men can't seem to get enough kimcheesecake, according to Shukan Asahi (12/14).
Entertainment districts across the country are getting an influx of South Korean sex workers.
Kankoku Shucho normally translates as "a business trip to South Korea," but its current use in Japan's netherworlds refers to women from the Land of the Morning Calm who will leave their bases to visit clients' hotel rooms or homes to provide them with erotic excitement.
"(Osaka's adult entertainment district of) Minami has become a virtual Koreatown, there are so many here. There's been an incredible increase in Koreans come in here over the past year or two," a writer on the adult entertainment business tells Shukan Asahi. "There are now even host clubs that cater exclusively to Korean women working at nighttime jobs."
Triggering the rapid increase in Korean sex workers serving Japanese streets was a tightening of laws regulating the jizz biz in their homeland three years ago. Men using prostitutes had occupied a gray area under the law until then, but since 2004 are arrested immediately and liable to face fines of 3 million won (about 360,000 yen) or a year in jail if convicted of paying for sex.
South Korea's tougher sex laws dealt a crippling blow to the country's flesh trade and left its denizens with so few employment opportunities they had little option but to avert their gaze offshore.
South Korean sex workers found a surprisingly ally in the form of the Japanese government. Last year, Japan formally welcomed South Korea into its visa waiver program, meaning the country's closest neighbors can now enter the country for 90 days without having to apply for permission to enter.
With Japan extending the welcome mat, South Korean sex workers fluttered over the seas like moths drawn to the neon lights of Japan's racier districts.
"Everything worked out so well, some people are even saying that luring the South Korean sex workers over here was a deliberate ploy hatched by the Korean and Japanese governments," an insider from an entertainment district says.
But the South Korean sex workers themselves aren't overly enamored with Japan.
"Everybody really wants to go to Hawaii. Or, if they can't get there, Australia. But the immigration checks there are too strict, so they all come to Japan where the probe is really slack," a hostess working at a South Korean nightclub in Tokyo tells Shukan Asahi. "And we want to buy brand name stuff." (By Ryann Connell)
（Mainichi Japan） December 14, 2007
Japan's mid-Noughties love affair for all things South Korean appears to be on the wane, except when it comes to the pleasures of the flesh, where feelings are as lustier as ever and Japanese men can't seem to get enough kimcheesecake, according to Shukan Asahi (12/14).
Entertainment districts across the country are getting an influx of South Korean sex workers.
Kankoku Shucho normally translates as "a business trip to South Korea," but its current use in Japan's netherworlds refers to women from the Land of the Morning Calm who will leave their bases to visit clients' hotel rooms or homes to provide them with erotic excitement.
"(Osaka's adult entertainment district of) Minami has become a virtual Koreatown, there are so many here. There's been an incredible increase in Koreans come in here over the past year or two," a writer on the adult entertainment business tells Shukan Asahi. "There are now even host clubs that cater exclusively to Korean women working at nighttime jobs."
Triggering the rapid increase in Korean sex workers serving Japanese streets was a tightening of laws regulating the jizz biz in their homeland three years ago. Men using prostitutes had occupied a gray area under the law until then, but since 2004 are arrested immediately and liable to face fines of 3 million won (about 360,000 yen) or a year in jail if convicted of paying for sex.
South Korea's tougher sex laws dealt a crippling blow to the country's flesh trade and left its denizens with so few employment opportunities they had little option but to avert their gaze offshore.
South Korean sex workers found a surprisingly ally in the form of the Japanese government. Last year, Japan formally welcomed South Korea into its visa waiver program, meaning the country's closest neighbors can now enter the country for 90 days without having to apply for permission to enter.
With Japan extending the welcome mat, South Korean sex workers fluttered over the seas like moths drawn to the neon lights of Japan's racier districts.
"Everything worked out so well, some people are even saying that luring the South Korean sex workers over here was a deliberate ploy hatched by the Korean and Japanese governments," an insider from an entertainment district says.
But the South Korean sex workers themselves aren't overly enamored with Japan.
"Everybody really wants to go to Hawaii. Or, if they can't get there, Australia. But the immigration checks there are too strict, so they all come to Japan where the probe is really slack," a hostess working at a South Korean nightclub in Tokyo tells Shukan Asahi. "And we want to buy brand name stuff." (By Ryann Connell)
（Mainichi Japan） December 14, 2007
