There are some rather unique professions in Japan, from the waitresses who work at cat girl maid cafes to people whose job it is to hand out those handy pocket tissues (the kind you get with every J-List order) at street corners in Japanese cities. In addition to normal taxis there are what are known as daiko, or “replacement drivers,” essentially a tax with two drivers, one of whom will drive you home in your own car (with the other car following behind), a great option for when you’ve had too much to drink but need your car the next morning. When a company releases a new product, they’ll often hire extremely beautiful models called “campaign girls” to hold the product and show it off. Similar to campaign girls are “race queens,” incredibly cute girls who promote F-1 racing in Japan. If you ride in an elevator in a posh Tokyo department store, you might be surprised to see a uniformed “elevator girl” who pushes the buttons for you and announces the items sold on each floor in the most charming voice. Japan is not always the most efficient country in the world, and there’s actually a job called “traffic flow measurers” who sit by the road and manually click a counter each time a car goes by. (This was featured in an episode of K-On! once.) One reason bank ATMs aren’t 24 hours in Japan is, there’s nearly always a person inside the machine (in a small room built into the back of the machine) who does things like refill the dispenser when it runs out of money as well as guard the machine from thieves — can you imagine doing that for a job? Finally, when choosing the most delicious rice is really important, you might go to a “rice sommelier” who’s an expert at tasting and classifying the different brands of rice sold in Japan.
Race queens and Campaign Girls in Japan, two of my favorite Japanese professions.
