Amid the bright lights and the hustle and bustle of Tokyo, foreign hostess bars are a major part of Japan's nightlife.

But they are little understood by the outside world.

Most men do nothing more than sit, drink and chat — usually in English — with young women from all over the world.

Come night time, the bustling hostess district of Ginza in Tokyo is packed with a post-work crowd of men and women, who spill out onto the street amongst neon signs for different types of hostess bars. Young women wait outside, trying to attract new customers.

Michelle, a 23-year-old woman from Perth, worked at an international ladies bar nearby for three months.

"I'm on a holiday, I want to have fun, I don't want to start my career yet," she told the ABC.

"This is easy and it doesn't require my brain."

Thanks to her striking looks — tall and curvy with blue eyes and long blond hair — she is no longer in the bar.

Three of the men she met there now pay her to accompany them on platonic dinner dates around Tokyo.

"People will pay for a dinner with me as they would pay for a bag on their arm," she said.

"They want to stand out, they know they are going to stand out with me.

"They pay for the interaction with a beautiful woman."

These men shower her with luxury gifts of handbags, laptops and plane tickets. Every dinner date ends with an envelope of cash, sometimes containing the equivalent of $1,000.

Juggling reality and the hostess illusion

The majority of hostess bars in Japan do not provide sexual services, hostess bar manager Noriko told the ABC — they are just a place for businessmen to relax.

"Being a hostess is just like a restaurant waitress," she said.

"You have to take care of them, talk to them, sit with them, mix their alcohol for them and just like that.

"It's up to you how you can maintain your morality."

Noriko, 30, has worked and also managed hostess bars around Tokyo and in Kamata.

While she is a qualified dentist, she has been helping her family run their hostess business for five years.

She is also married — but maintains the illusion of being single so that she does not lose customers. She said it is a difficult thing to juggle, while also building trust and loyalty in her clients.

"You have to lie all the time. You have to lie about your private life," she said.

"Because when they find out you are committed or you have a boyfriend, or you're a married person … everything will end for you.

"It's the end of your career and you need to take on another customer to pay for you."

Michelle said she has seen hostesses who are new in Japan shocked by the way women are objectified in the job.

"There a lot of girls who I don't think they really know what to expect," she said.

"They put a western dynamic and they look at the Japanese values and compared it to western values.

"They find it incredibly misogynistic and very devaluing for them and generally quit within a week".

Japanese men prefer going out with foreign women

Noriko said foreign hostess bars offer something unique and exciting for her customers, who often have trouble relating to Japanese women.

"They keep on saying that Japanese women are really so boring and so immature," she said.

A group of Tokyoite businessmen chat outside an Izakaya around midnight. ( Flickr: Stephan Geyer )

"Japanese women are really so shy, you cannot ask them about sex or about sensitive matters.

"But most of the foreign people are open minded so it's really enjoyable to talk with them instead of talking with Japanese ladies".

One man who prefers talking to foreign hostesses is Takashi Ogasawara, a doctor and medical professor at Tokyo's prestigious Keio University, who has been visiting hostess bars in Japan for more than 10 years.

Dr Ogasawara, 61, has spent nearly 20 years away from Japan and said he sometimes cannot relate with Japanese people from his own generation.

"If I go to the international hostess club I have common knowledge, whatever they say I know," he said.

"If I go to the Japanese hostess it's not good."

While the reasons for visiting foreign hostess bars are varied, talking business in Japan often means going to one to seal business deals.

Dr Ogasawara said it is like an extension of the office with companies paying the bill.

'It's like a modern geisha'

While the industry does attract women with few employment options, it also employs overqualified women with university degrees who see it as an easy way to make money.

Michelle — who is a geologist by trade — said her clients are often surprised to discover she has been to university.

"If you know the client well enough and if they speak English well enough and you can communicate really well they can be shocked that someone like me I have a degree," she said.

"They are so shocked I have a brain and they actually genuinely value it."

Michelle said she puts in extra effort to learn her clients' hobbies and interests, and this has paid off.

"My goal here is to spend one year here and put a deposit on a house," she said.

"Even more so have a client buy a house for me, that's happened before."

For some hostess bars with high-profile customers, Noriko said keeping up to date on business and finance was part of the job.

"Most of the customers coming to hostess clubs, they are people having highest position in a company — businessmen, directors, chairmen," she said.

"Those people are really interested in business; talk about current events, trade and export.

"It's not about beauty or make-up so most of the hostess people they really study.

"It's like a modern geisha."

Hostesses respected, but job is 'not honourable'

Michelle said gaining the respect of her clients can be a mission.

"Do I think we are valued? Definitely not. We're just young girls depending on our looks," she said.

"When you put effort into it, yes they respect you.

"But before that, when you're just another dime-a-dozen girl who has just come here based on your looks … they are not going to respect you because you haven't earned their respect."

Dr Ogasawara believes that while the job itself as a hostess is respected by Japanese society, he would not accept his daughter working as one.

He said some hostesses do provide sexual services, and this tarnishes the reputation of the job.

"Very rarely, a small percentage they go to a hotel with customers. It's not common but there is a possibly or tendency," he said.

"So it's not an honourable job … it is not shameful but it is not honourable."

To the outsider, Japan's hostess bars are a confusing mix of tradition blended with heavy drinking and womanising.

Although it looks like an elaborate scam, the allure of a hostess bar is that it provides a mostly harmless fantasy.

Paying for praise and attention gives many Japanese men a chance to feel the excitement they are looking for.