The little sign off to the right also says no one under the age of 18, so…
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Love hotel it looks like judging from the time rates. Yeah, I’ve been not invited into a few of those- usually because of the gender of who I was splitting the room with, but also because of “confusions that might arise”.
I’ve got a laundry list of examples but it basically all boils down to the idea that it’s not discrimination, it’s differentiation. Japan would never discriminate, but you’re not Japanese so it’s expected that you will be treated differently. And yes, it does cause problems when you’re a visible minority with Japanese citizenship. Not carrying the proper foreigner paperwork can cause a fair amount of police harassment for those that attract attention.
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No, it is definitely a brothel.
Under the hourly rates, it says 指名料: 2,000円, which is the fee that you pay for selecting a girl of your choice from a catalog.
Here is their website (Japanese only, but you get the gist). Totally NSFW!!!
Actually, no, I’m not going to link to that, but if you are curious, you can Google 池袋バイオレンス and it should come up.
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You’ve got better eyesight than me. You’re right- the two rates would read rest and stay, not time units. And yes, brothels are usually one of those places that ban foreigners outright to reduce those awkward “misunderstandings”. Doesn’t mean there aren’t foreigners in there, but they’re not the customers, I’d expect.
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I actually have a fun story about that. I have a friend (Japanese guy) who used to frequent those places before he got married and he was trying to get me to go and I kept telling him that they won’t allow me in.
So he called up a friend who works as a bouncer at one of those places and asked if they allow foreigners. The guy said, “As an employee or as a customer?” So yeah, no dice for foreigners as customers (not that I really wanted to go, because, yeesh) regardless of whether there is a sign that says so explicitly.
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I agree. Even in places absolutely not like this, speaking Japanese decently in Japan is a big plus, especially on countryside and less touristic places.
Even going in a lovely and tiny onsen with all the signs in japanese only could be difficult if one can’t read kanji.
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I experienced quite a bit of it while stationed at the Yokosuka Naval Base. Considering the embarrassing and terrible things US service members have done in Japan, I always thought some of the restrictions were warranted. I’ve had a older woman give up a precious seat on a train and stand the rest of her trip simply because she didn’t want to sit next to me.
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Similarly, I remember a checkout at a supermarket at a ski resort in the French Alps with a sign that said “French only”.
Not “locals only” which might make sense in terms of people who had to work that day not having to wait in line behind hordes of tourists. This was a mega-resort (Alpe d’Huez) which does attract a lot of Brits but also a lot of French (and other European) skiers. So I suspect it was a language thing.
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There are certain areas in Tokyo that are generally not recommended for foreigners, like Kabukicho. But Kabukicho is in a bustling part of the city full of non Japanese. So you see a lot of signs like these. They don’t want the hassle (and convention planners don’t want the hassle either- don’t take your fresh off the plane self to Kabukicho.)
I was never involved in the US military, but I lived/worked near a base for five years. The impression that I got was that the US military tightly controlled what the enlisted could do. They only seemed to visit a small handful of businesses, and those places were run in a way that was more accessible to someone with zero Japanese. There was also a specific housing market geared towards military seeking off base housing, and a complete lack of language support that you find in other areas of the country. The assumption was just that any foreigner was being taken care of by the military (or their private company). This lead to the MP being called anytime there was a disagreement with a noticable foreigner, and things got weird trying to put my kid in public school/access benefits, but I didn’t see those signs as often as I did living in Tokyo. It could also be that at that time I had a kid and my partner was no longer working in nightlife, so take these observations with a grain of salt.
The signs don’t make Japan look good, but it’s the underlying ideas that bother me more.
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