Tokyo pt 8 - Butlers! 外国人バトラー喫茶店

Saturday was THEbig day - Hamasaki's concert!   

土曜日は大切な日だった！浜崎ちゃんのイベント!

But it wasn't til later in the evening, so we took the afternoon easy,  just meeting up with ひ-ちゃん and み-ちゃん for lunch in Harajuku. We ended up finding a nice contemporary Japanese place.　だけど、コンサットの前友達達一緒遊んだ。午後時ひちゃんとみちゃん食事した。原宿で会った。

Katsu-donburi. Not bad.　もちろん日本料理を食べた。

今回カツ丼選べた。食べた後、よちゃんも会った、彼女と僕達一緒トウキュウハンズへ行った。面白物一杯有った、ドンキーホーティ一寸同じ。。。

We walked to Shibuya and met up with よ-ちゃん, she showed us an interesting store called Tokyu Hands, that sells all kinds of random stuff -

L - Blurry picture of samurai armor suit miniatures.   日本の歴史から大名の鎧の玩具。

R - I know what I'm going to be next Halloween...       次のハロウェーン衣装を見つけた！

その後カフェを行きたかった、友達一人は提案を言った：「近くにバトラーカフェが在る、一寸特別ですよ、英語のバトラーカフェです。行きましょうか？」僕は メイドメイドカフェ好きけど、バトラーカフェに行ったことがないから、一寸見たかった。。。　実はとても面白かった！パト君と私はアメリカ人だから、とても可笑しいと思った。：-P

Since it was rather sunny outside, we decided to just go to a nearby cafe to relax a bit before the concert. One in our group (who's identity will remain secret) said 'oh, you know what's nearby?  A butler cafe[the male equivalent of a maid cafe] .  Actually its an English language butler cafe.... do you want to go there?'

(AP Photo)

Not only is it a cafe where they get guys to dress up like butlers and give customers the 'royal treatment',  this place hires only westerners (aka white people) to be butlers, and they do it all in English....  so instead of a cutsy japanese girl saying 'Irashiyamasse Goshujin-sama'('welcome my master'), you get a white guy saying 'Welcome my Princess!' (or in our case, 'Welcome my beautiful princesses and excellent gentlemen').

Yes, to us it sounds EXTREMELYcheesy in English -- Patrick and I were having a lot of trouble keeping from cracking up right there on the spot....  (and they were having trouble doing it with a straight face in front of us too!)  IT's too bad you couldn't take pictures (i should have asked anyway)!

The butler guys were actually very nice... they looked like they were a bit starved for some intelligent english conversation with male customers, so we spent quite a lot of time talking to them, asking them how the English Butler business is in Tokyo.  It was really interesting actually!  They showed us some of the magazine and newspaper coverage they've gotten,  and even mentioned that CNN had visited them a few weeks before...

IRONICALLY,  Lisa just put this up on her blog the day before we went and we didn't even know... this is the same place we went, same guys too!  この所一寸有名になった。CNNはレーポルトした：

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2008/06/30/lah.white.cafe.cnn

There's an article by the AP (where i got that photo above) 国際APもした：

Tokyo Cafe Taps into Women's Prince Charming Fantasies

Official Bulter's Cafe & Restaurant website -  バトラーカフェの公式サイト

There's also this video from Japanese TV:　日本のテレビのビデオを見て下さい！

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDdX3LXPdqQ

Before you ask, let me try to throw a few important points out there (to the best of my knowledge) -　このブログ読めるの外国人為に少し質問の回答を書いた：

*Their hair and outfits are actually that way on purpose... they're actually emulating the image popularized by a genre of Japanese comics that are popular with young women... (and just like most of the rest of them, a weird genre at that...)  -- just as guys like girl-girl implied (or explicit) sexuality in their comics and anime, some Japanese woman like the same from their boy-boy comics...:-o

如何してそのゲーイの髪が在る？BL漫画が好きな日本の女達に、そのセンスの男がかっこいと思う。

*Yes apparently they do get stalkers too...  (which happens at Maid Cafes too of course).  In this case though not all the stalkers are members of the opposite sex... (I hope they're getting paid well!)　メイドちゃんの大問題がスターカーです、外国人バトラー君もこの問題有る。。。女のスターカーだけじゃないよ！

*They said one of the more popular aspects of their place is that they basically are offering English conversation to customers,  a valuable resource for the many japanese studying english in school or after work.  Some people come in and ask for help on their homework apparently (to be honest, sometimes I used to do my Japanese homework at a Maid Cafe when I lived in Japan too... but I never asked the girls for help!) :-P　この店の外の特別事が英語の対語も無料くれる、英語授業の宿題もお手伝いしてくれる。僕は日本に住んでいた時もカフェで日本語の宿題をした、スターバーは高し煩しから、メイドカフェでした（このカフェ人気じゃなかったから、静かった！） ;-)

*Like all maid/butler cafes, this place offers to let you take pictures with the staff members for a fee. As you can see in the video, here they offer to lift you up in their ' strong but gentle arms' for the picture....  I couldn't convince Patrick to try it. (but i saw a few examples they had up on the wall... not all the customers are your typical 98 pound petite Japanese woman...)　メイドカフェでメイドちゃんと写真を撮れます。もちろんバトラーカフェでもできる、でも一寸違う。ビデオと写真に見える。　パト君したくなかったが。

(AP Photo)

Last but not least, since business was slow that afternoon, they offered to show us a few of the games they play with customers which are quite successful at entertaining Japanese woman to no end...  also they asked us to fill out a questionnaire... the questionnaire had a multiple choice question that said something like 'Today I am...'  and one of the choices was 'having the best day ever'.  I picked that answer cause i thought it was a pretty good day so far... and i thought the rest of the day would go well... little did I know! :-D

Thank you to the Butlers for being one part of my best day ever!

カフェでバトラーがアンケートをくれた。ひとつの質問は多項選択式で、それは’今日は私は。。。’だった。それで’一番良い日だった’を選んだ。 本当にそうだったよ。