On the afternoon of March 16, police in New Taipei, Taiwan began questioning Kim Jungah, a 29-year-old Korean female, who was waiting for a ride in front of a motel.
With Kim obviously flustered and making little sense, the police awaited the arrival of her driver, who quickly fingered her as a prostitute. She was arrested on the spot.
“I was told by a Korean friend that I could making a living as a hooker in Taiwan,” the police quoted a teary-eyed Kim, who was found to have packs of condoms, lubricant tubes, two smartphones and a wad of cash in her possession.
According to weekly Friday (April 10), her acquaintance was completely accurate: Kim earned nearly one million yen over an 18-day period that began in February.
Most intriguing to the magazine was that the suspect, likely in attempting to boost her value, pretended to be Japanese — a sure sign of the Asian male’s fondness for women from the Land of the Rising Son.
“Men (in Asia) water at the mouth over Japanese women,” says Akira Ikoma, editor of a guide to the men’s entertainment called Ore no Tabi (My Journey). “Taiwanese people are generally pro-Japan, but with the history of the occupation (between 1895 and 1945) there is a complicated feeling of hostility and aspiration that exists. As a result, men (in Taiwan) have developed a different type of carnal desire (for Japanese women) than that for locals.”
That discrepancy is reflected in the going rate they (and their copycats) may charge as prostitutes. “For some customers, a nice-looking gal can fetch up 150,000 yen,” a local news reporter tells the magazine.
For Kim, she had registered with the Web site of a prostitution group. With a doll-like facial complexion, she boasted of a 170-centimeter frame, an E-cup chest and — appallingly to Friday — the sexual techniques of a Japanese woman. She also claimed to be 20 years old.
“She was said to be working as a nurse for orthopedic surgery in Korea,” the local news reporter says. “In Taiwan, she charged the equivalent of 57,000 yen per session as a prostitute. She insisted to people that she came to Taiwan as a tourist.”
The name she used was pronounced the same as that of popular adult video (AV) actress Maki Mizusawa.
“In Taiwan, former actress Sola Aoi is hugely popular due to the huge infatuation local men have with Japanese women,” says Ikoma. “So she mimicked Mizusawa.”
In 2004, the Korean government passed an anti-prostitution law and shuttered a number of sex shops. As a result, the magazine says, Korea has “exported” tens of thousands of prostitutes to the United States, Japan and Australia.
Ikoma thinks this case is the tip of the iceberg.
“With Japan’s commercial sex trade still struggling, the number of Chinese and Korean women seeking to sell their bodies (outside their homelands) as a Japanese, much like ‘Maki Mizusawa,’ is on the rise,” says the editor.
Source: “’Mizusawa Maki, 20-sai no E-kappu desu’ nihonjin wo katatte arakasegi kangokujin baishun-pu no shogeki sugao,” Friday (April 10, pages 30-31)