CBS Sunday Morning had a segment on the new-ish phenomenon of “Maid Cafés.” I gathered from the report that they are most popular in areas of Japan where there are a lot of (male) “geeks.” Here’s a description from a Boston.com article on these restaurants:
“Welcome home, Master,” says the maid as she bows deeply, hands clasped in front of a starched pinafore worn over a short pink dress.
This maid serves not some aristocrat but a string of pop-culture-mad customers at a “Maid Cafe” in Tokyo’s Akihabara district, long known as a Mecca for electronics buffs but now also the center of the capital’s “nerd culture.”
“When they address you as ‘Master’, the feeling you get is like a high,” says Koji Abei, a 20-year-old student having coffee with a friend at the Royal Milk Cafe and Aromacare.
Here’s a wikipedia description— discussing how these cafés pull various cultural practices– Japanese manga, anime, Japanese geishas, and French (or English) maids. Apparently, there are now Maid Cafés in Canada and Hong Kong (the one in Hong Kong is called the “Master-and-maid café”). Here are some videos as well– from the U.S. news, and from Japanese news (sorry it isn’t translated). These might make for an interesting discussion on culture, globalization, and gender.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjNGX-jQS94[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0JmfyP4KPs[/youtube]
Comments 6
Anonymous — April 20, 2008
I haven't watched the videos, but I did see the segment this morning and thought that it was interesting that they tried to justify it as not being sexist through the fact that a new subgenre of maid cafe was opening where men were the maids instead of women.
C'mon you sociology professors, what's the proper term for when this happens?
David — April 20, 2008
C'mon, this is a step up from hooters restaurants!
Anonymous — April 21, 2008
It is?
georgeslymaniv — April 21, 2008
So basically Hooters Japan.
Gomi — April 21, 2008
It's not exactly Hooters, which could lead to examinations of gender perception in Japan versus America. Hooters is all about tight tshirts and short shorts. Maid cafes are more about the demure and, frankly, submissive service. Each may present a "feminine" ideal of the culture it inhabits, but one's definitely physical and the other isn't.
Elena — April 22, 2008
Butler cafés are the equivalent for women:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hhBQ7ji0pVP194qcI36ojROut10Q
http://www.wordpress.tokyotimes.org/?p=821
Note that in the last years the subculture of female otaku has grown prominent.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.03/play.html?pg=3
Many of these girls and women are often fans of the "BL" (boys' love) genre of erotica for women centered on pretty gay men (look up "yaoi" on the Wikipedia for more information). These fangirls or "fujoshi" cluster in Tokyo around Otome Road, and they're the target audience for these butler cafés.
http://comipress.com/article/2006/08/24/624
Discussions about gender and sexual orientation in Japan are a bit more complicated than it would seem at a first glance :D