Where They Pay to Hear You Rant

When you're a foreigner in Japan, some jobs pay rather well for what is arguably a very trivial task. I don't think of my own work to be particularly easy, taking into consideration the amount of energy that has to be put into it, but there are different ways around to making money in Japan.

Aala's chat table

For example, Aala runs a chat table at a lounge cafe called the Mickey House. His job is essentially to speak to people for a few hours in his own native language, which is, in this case, French. Although they sometimes are, the subjects of his discussions don't have to be particularly educative, and more often than not, we find ourselves talking about things we would've been discussing anyway.
For this, Aala makes 1000¥ an hour, which translates roughly to 13$. Hell, that's not bad, considering he doesn't necessarily seem to have to be nice to people he doesn't like!

The Mickey House has its loyal customers, who I frequently see attending Aala's table, and, quite contrary to what I would've thought at first, many of them aren't even Japanese, but are actually French themselves. Several reasons for this can be taken into account. For one, these people may not have a chance to make much conversation on a daily basis, if they don't have mastery over the Japanese language. Alternatively, they could be hoping to meet Japanese people who are interested in their own culture. And there are quite a number of those, from time to time. Surprising, considering they have to pay 2000¥ to get in (whereas foreigners get in for 500¥.)