Mizu shōbai

Mizu-shōbai (Japanese: 水商売), literally the water trade, is the traditional euphemism for the nighttime entertainment business in Japan, provided by hostess or snack bars, bars, and cabarets. Kabuki-chō in Shinjuku, Tokyo, is Japan's most well-known modern mizu-shōbai district; it also supports the fūzoku (風俗) sex industry of soaplands, pink salons and health and image clubs.

Etymology

While the actual origin of the term mizu-shōbai[1] is debatable, it is likely the term came into use during the Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1868).[2] The Tokugawa period saw the development of large bathhouses and an expansive network of roadside inns offering "hot baths and sexual release",[2] as well as the expansion of geisha districts and courtesan quarters in cities and towns throughout the country. Bearing relation to the pleasure-seeking aspects of the ukiyo (浮世, lit. 'fleeting world'), with its antithetical homophone 'sorrowful cycle of existence' or 'the floating world' (憂世), mizu-shōbai is a metaphor for floating, drinking, and the impermanence of life, akin to the Western expression "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die" (Isaiah 22:13).[3][4]

According to one theory proposed by the Nihon Gogen Daijiten,[5] the term comes from the Japanese expression shōbu wa mizumono da (勝負は水物だ, "gain or loss is a matter of chance"), where the literal meaning of the phrase "matter of chance", mizumono (水物), is "a matter of water". In the entertainment business, income depends on a large number of fickle factors like popularity among customers, the weather, the state of the economy; success and failure change as rapidly as the flow of water. The Nihon Zokugo Daijiten,[6] on the other hand, notes that the term may derive from the expression doromizu-kagyō (泥水稼業, lit. 'muddy water earning business'), for earning a living in the red-light districts, or from the Edo-period expression mizuchaya (水茶屋) for a public teahouse.

See also

References
  1. Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary. Tokyo. 1991. ISBN 4-7674-2015-6.
  2. De Mente, Boyé Lafayette. "Selling sex in a glass! — Japan's pleasure trades". Archived from the original on 16 July 2019. Retrieved 2006-10-03.
  3. Isaiah 22:13
  4. "浮世（うきよ） - 語源由来辞典". Gogen-allguide.com. 2016-05-19. Retrieved 2016-06-28.
  5. 前田, 富祺 (ed.). 『日本語源大辞典』 [Japan Source Dictionary] (in Japanese). 小学館. ISBN 4095011815.
  6. 米川, 明彦 (ed.). 『日本俗語大辞典』 [Japanese Folklore Dictionary] (in Japanese). 東京堂出版. ISBN 4490106386.
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