ONE HAPPY HOSTESS

I went to Japan and became a hostess (“The Broken Dreams of the Blond Geishas,” by Karl Taro Greenfeld, Nov. 8). It was to have been a three-month vacation between my graduation from USC and my plunging into the real world. Once in Osaka, a friend introduced me to the world of hostessing, and I decided to stay for a while.

I returned after one year with $35,000 in my pocket, which I used as part of the down payment on an income property. After not being able to find a job here in my major, journalism, I went back to Japan to save some more money. This time I went to language school full-time, worked at night and invested my time studying the Japanese and their culture, which is what I consider my best asset today.

What I am trying to say is that hostessing is, like anything else, what you make of it. A young woman can lose her values as easily there as she can here. But it can be a gold mine, in more ways than one, if she knows how to appreciate the situation and take advantage of her limited time there.

NAME WITHHELD

Los Angeles