If you missed it, check out my previous post, The Stripper’s Daughter, Part One: Mommy and Me

We were standing in the tiny back kitchen of her hostess bar, Club HANA, on the island of Miyakojima, Okinawa (1994). A few minutes earlier, she had offered me up to one of her affluent customers, and I naturally assumed she was kidding.

For two days beforehand, my mother Mariya had been preparing for her favorite VIP guest, Okanemochi-san, to arrive from Osaka. She and my stepfather Suka discussed the impending visit as though the Prime Minister of Japan were coming for a state dinner. Extra hibiscus flowers sat on the tables and Johnnie Walker Black was stocked in the bar, exclusively for Okanemochi-san. The shiny, black upright player piano was reprogrammed with his favorite songs (mostly The Rolling Stones) and, of course, Club HANA’s best hostesses were on the schedule.

On the evening of Okanemochi-san’s arrival, my mother insisted I try on one of her vintage dresses. Because she liked how I looked, my mom asked me to help out at the club. Secretly, I was thrilled.

As I wrote previously, my mother and I had been estranged for years, and—even at the age of 30—I craved her approval, which she rarely gave. To this day, she is still the most exquisite woman I’ve ever known; I think my father thought so too. They split in 1972, and my father moved to his ancestral Scotland, where he remarried and started a new family. After his death in 2017, his widow found a hidden shoebox in the attic—old black-and-white photos of my breathtaking mother.

During this 1994 visit, my mom was still a stunner. As we were getting ready to leave, my stepfather brought the car around and drove us to the club. I was elated that my usually critical mother wanted to finally show me off. Years before, she had shamed me publicly for being overweight, so this felt like a personal win—until it didn’t.

While at the club, I assumed I would shadow my mother—the owner and mamasan—on the main floor and just observe, maybe pour a few drinks or get karaoke started. I even took my camcorder to capture the memories (video frames below).

I had helped out at HANA before, doing menial tasks like sorting oshibori (wet hospitality towels) and waiting for the evening food to arrive in the back kitchen. My mother had a friend who cooked and delivered appetizers, which my mom then took credit for and sold at exorbitant prices.

“It’s just business,” my mother would say. Her markup on booze flabbergasted me. One night, I joined my stepfather on a whisky run. In the back seat of his car, my job was to gently scrape off the original price tags with a razor blade. Back at the club, my mother wiped the bottles down and affixed her own tags, quadrupling the cost. A ¥3,000 bottle of whisky (about $30) was suddenly ¥12,000 ($120).

Everything turned out to be a commodity—even the Mamasan’s daughter.

My mother was bilingual and spoke perfect English when she wanted to. I understood a little Japanese, but since I was raised in Los Angeles, my first language was English. She would regularly forget and speak to me in Japanese, but by picking up on her inflections, I’d usually figure out what she was saying—but not always.

I was working behind the bar, sorting through karaoke laser discs, when my mother called me over to meet her esteemed, VIP customer. They had been chatting, and two of my mother’s hostesses were hovering nearby. Okanemochi-san was leaning back in a club chair, sprawled out, smoking a cigarette and sipping whisky. My mother was doing the pouring. She then offered me a glass, and Okanemochi-san raised his and smiled. We clinked glasses and said, “kanpai” (Japanese for cheers). She poured another. We toasted again—and again.

The whisky kicked in and I was actually enjoying the evening. It was still just the three of us at the table when my mother said, “Honey, he’s going to buy you a ticket to Tokyo for this weekend. Relax, enjoy yourself, he’ll take you shopping and buy whatever you want”.

“EXCUSE ME?”

I stood up, trying to clear my head, then walked a few feet away. My mother followed. I whispered: “You want me to spend the weekend with this man? What the hell is wrong with you?”

She laughed uncomfortably, stroked my hair and said, “He likes mixed girls, he’ll pay more for half white.”

I instantly recalled a disturbing memory from a few years prior. During a 1991 visit with my mother on Okinawa (where I was born), I was out shopping in the busy Kokusai-dori district and headed back to our hotel. Looking up from the street, I saw my mother in the fourth-floor window, sitting in a lounge area. She waved me up.

Sitting at a four-top table with a man I didn’t know, I watched my mother look through a stack of binders containing photos of young women. They were glossy headshots, and risqué swimsuit photos as well. She was sipping vodka and pineapple juice (her favorite) and nonchalantly flipping the pages. “I get them in six-packs,” she laughed. “So, we’re ordering hostess girls?” I nervously asked. This was the first time I’d experienced this side of her business. The binders were filled with what, to me, looked like hopeful women from Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, and more.

“Where are the hapa girls?” my mother briskly asked the man. “You know that mixed girls sell better.” I sat silent, my head spinning and thinking, I’m mixed—and HOLY SHIT, did she, possibly, breed me? Of course not, said my inner voice. A mother wouldn’t do that.

Back at Club HANA, I stood head-to-head with my mother near the bar. Her VIP patron, Okanemochi-san, looked confident, half-smiling at the drama playing out in front of him. I was furious my mother had even entertained the idea of selling me to someone (even for a weekend), but deep down, I wasn’t surprised. My heart was pounding; there was nowhere to run. I knew not to get between my mother and her business affairs, but this was not happening. She saw it in my eyes, took a deep breath and then she told me to apologize to her VIP customer.

This only made things worse.

In my limited Japanese, I looked at him, then bowed as deeply as possible in the form-fitting dress and said, Gomen nasai (I’m sorry), Okanemochi-san. He slammed down his drink, shot me an angry look, then smirked as he lit another cigarette. My mother’s face turned blood-red and she began shaking out of anger. She pointed to the back room, and I was kicked off the floor.

My mom did this thing with her face. It was frightening, really. She could be chatting kindly with customers, then as she was turning around to face me, she would transform into something akin to evil. It was all in the eyes and lips.

She gave me the look as she stormed to the back. Apparently, her VIP’s name was not, in fact, Okanemochi. It was her nickname for him, a private joke between her and my stepfather. Okanemochi means “rich man” in Japanese. Had I actually been fluent in Japanese (my mother fumed), I would have known that.

And then the laughing started and I couldn’t stop. I could barely breathe. For days she had been calling him Okanemochi-san, so I assumed that was his name, not a belittling epithet. My mother had just tried to sell me, and she was mad AT ME for calling her patron “Mr. Rich Man”? It was all just so completely absurd.

Customers could hear me laughing—including Mr. Rich Man—and that was unacceptable. My mother’s hand went up to strike me, and I jumped back in shock. Thankfully, my stepfather lunged between us and my mother backed down. I think he knew I would have retaliated. Nobody touched Mama Mariya—not even her daughter.

Eventually I composed myself and slithered behind the bar with my stepfather for the rest of the evening. It turned out, Mr. Rich Man had a cutting sense of humor, and a few hours later, offered to buy me again— this time with a shopping spree to Mikimoto jewelry store attached. It was still a hard NO.

Back in California, the 1994 visit became a joke with my friends and with my ex-husband: “That time your mom tried to sell you, haha.” But I was so ashamed and hurt that I didn’t answer her calls or letters for years.

Looking back, I am still amazed at the audacity my mother had. Only when I was a commodity did she think I was worthy. I never brought any value to her life until I was “pretty enough” (by her standards). It took years to understand that she could not help herself. It took decades to heal, find my own worth—and truly love myself.

In time, my mother and I reconnected, but our reunion brought further shocking disclosures.

More Soon. Please make sure you are subscribed to get it straight to your inbox.

Lyrics that have always reminded me of my mother:
“Under my thumb
Is a Siamese cat of a girl
Under my thumb
She’s the sweetest pet in the world” - The Rolling Stones

It was September 1994 and I was living in San Diego with my first husband, the airline pilot.

Due to an international divorce in 1972, my mother, Mariya, and I were estranged for most of my childhood. She remained in Okinawa, where I was born, while I was sent to California. Years later, we reconnected and even met a few times in Japan.

In 1994, my mom was living near Okinawa on the island of Miyakojima, where she ran a hostess bar called HANA (“flower” in Japanese). One night she called to tell me that she was seriously ill, and asked me to visit. The request was out of the blue, and completely out of character. My stepfather Suka was there, so why did she need me to drop everything and be by her side?

One of the perks of being married to an airline pilot was the free international flights. Incredibly, I had access to blank stand-by tickets that most major airlines would honor. My husband had a STACK of them with his employee ID and airline code written on the front. I just had to fill in the destination and walk to an airline counter at any airport. A weekend in London to check out a favorite band? No problem. A summer in Greece? My bags were packed. It was a traveler’s dream and, of course, completely infeasible today.

An impromptu visit with my mother, though, made me anxious. As a child, I had been in awe of her and, frankly, afraid of her. During the Vietnam War, she ran successful nightclubs near military bases on Okinawa, which at the time had been occupied by the United States. Before that, in the late 1950s, she was a well-known stripper on the island and headlined several clubs in Koza, the vibrant entertainment district.

Orphaned during WW2, my mother learned to hustle as a young girl and was never ashamed of what was required to survive. Once, I asked her about taking her clothes off for men and she shrugged, “no work, no food, so hungry”.

In later years, she also opened successful hostess clubs in Tokyo, partnering with old Yakuza (organized crime) pals. My mother was fiercely unapologetic about her life in the mizu shōbai—the water trade. The term refers to nightlife entertainment—descended from geisha culture—that alludes to a profession that is fluid and unpredictable

When I visited her in ’87, she was living in Hino City, located in the western part of Tokyo. My mom was flush with cash and constantly surrounded by her shady-looking cohorts. On occasion, I’d inquire about the Yakuza, but she refused to acknowledge any illegal conduct. “It’s just business,” she’d dismissively say. After the Japanese economic bubble burst in the early 1990s, my mother moved down island to Miyakojima, where she opened HANA.

Some describe hostess bar girls as “modern-day geisha”, but without the kimono (or honor). My mother’s girls were there to converse with men and to be the “perfect date” for an evening. The young women were trained in multiple languages, seduction, etiquette, and even karaoke. She coached them on how to be coquettish, how to dress, and how to act subservient. Most importantly, they were taught how to inflate the bill.

My mother made money by charging lucrative membership fees and selling exorbitantly priced bar bites and alcohol. In the past I’d asked how well the hostesses were paid. “I pay my girls best in town”, she’d said with a smirk. But I’d also learned that several of the women had arrived with debt from other club owners, so they actually owed my mother money. This meant that until the past debts were cleared, they had to find supplemental income elsewhere. “After hours? What they do on their own time, not my business”, my mother said. I shut up— and cringed.

Her HANA girls were beautiful and slender, with names like “Cher” and “Madonna”. There was even a “Farrah” at one point — a revolving list of hostess stage names borrowed from American pop culture.

After arranging time off work to care for my ill mother, I finally arrived in Japan. Exhausted after three plane changes and sleepless nights of crippling anxiety, I got to her home and found her perfectly healthy, sitting in her garden smoking a cigarette. The bitch had lied.

Apparently, my mom called me when she was shit-faced drunk, and wasn’t sick at all. She was even convinced that I suggested the visit to see her. I hadn’t. Flabbergasted and jet-lagged, I settled in the guest room and decided “fuck it, I’m here. I may as well enjoy it.” I had been to Miyakojima a few years prior but had forgotten how stunningly beautiful the island was. The clear turquoise water was even dubbed, “Miyako Blue.”

With my trusty old Nikon in hand, I spent the next morning photographing colorful hibiscus flowers along the coastal path. Later, I met up with my stepdad to shop for dinner. Because Suka was twenty years younger than my mom, he always felt more like a brother to me than a father figure. He was my mother’s caregiver, driver, cook, and bodyguard. Yet she took him for granted, often speaking harshly to him. I always felt that he deserved better. And quite honestly, we both did.

As a hostess club owner, my mother worked nights and slept during the day. Dinner was always breakfast. She’d pick at her meal, but only after smoking a Marlboro menthol and mixing herself a tall “Hawaii juice” cocktail. Canned pineapple juice and vodka on ice was her pre-game drink, and she ONLY used Dole. Once, I offered to make her cocktail with fresh fruit. She scoffed. Apparently, it wasn’t pineapple season, but she preferred the canned anyway. She also drank Awamori (a distilled Okinawan spirit), but that was reserved for work hours. “Hawaii juice” was her sipping cocktail while she dressed for her role as mamasan or, as her girls called her, “Mama Mariya”.

My mother was the most breathtaking and stylish person I have ever known. I loved watching her transform into a fierce, commanding powerhouse, trading her worn-out cotton bathrobe and dirty house slippers for an elegant cocktail dress and dramatic stiletto heels.

Sitting at her vanity table, my mother lit another cigarette before applying makeup. Her confidence seemed to rise with every stroke of gloopy mascara and sip of booze. In 1994, she was 57 and unequivocally beautiful. I was 30 years old and deeply envied her swagger.

From early stripper promo pictures to snapshots of her commanding the room at one of her clubs, my mother’s tiny waist, ample cleavage, and hourglass shape were, for me, the epitome of beauty and completely unattainable. Even when I had silicone implants in my early 20s, I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin and just looked ridiculous. Years later, I had them removed.

Ever since puberty, I’d been struggling with my weight, and my mother never missed an opportunity to comment about it. A few years before the 1994 visit, she even humiliated me publicly in front of her staff. “You’re too fat to even work in my club,” she joked. I snapped back, “So I’m too fat to be a whore?” She ignored me. I pretended to forget it ever happened. I didn’t, and it contributed to even more body-image issues throughout my life.

But during this particular visit, I was the thinnest I’d ever been, and she didn’t even notice the weight loss—or, even worse, she did.

One night, while I was helping my stepfather clean up dinner, my mother called me to her bedroom. She was sipping her cocktail and blowing smoke rings from her cigarette. “Try it on,” she said, tossing me a dress. It was one of her old cheongsams—a fitted, Chinese-style dress with a Mandarin collar. My heart was racing. I couldn’t possibly fit into her form-fitting, black silk gown. The deceptively heavy fabric featured intricate gold embroidery, and the dress was secured by tiny buttons running from the hip, across the chest and up to the neck.

It took forever to painstakingly fasten each button, and I was too afraid to even look in the mirror. But, to my surprise, the dress fit. I turned to face my mother, her cigarette dangling from her perfectly painted lips. She nearly smiled—a gesture I took, perhaps a little too earnestly, as a sign of approval.

That’s the night she tried to sell me to Okanemochi-san, one of her high-end patrons from Osaka.

Coming Soon: The Stripper’s Daughter, Part 2. Please make sure you are subscribed to get it straight to your inbox.

Below, I’ve included a few lyrics from a song my mother loved, which I played while writing about her. It’s funny how an old “love song” can work for mothers and daughters too.

“I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden / Along with the sunshine, there’s gotta be a little rain sometime” — Lynn Anderson, “Rose Garden”

After decades of carrying shame, I am finally letting it go.

I’ll be sharing stories of abandonment, abuse, resilience, finding joy, and the long road to healing—a work in progress.

Welcome to The Stripper’s Daughter. I’m so glad you’re here.

JoJo Takahara