The water trade

John David Morley wrote a Japan-ambiented short story "Pictures from the water trade" (mizu shobai), Flamingo paperbacks, London. White cover, red lips, a sensual combination of colors.

Mizu shobai refers to the floating world, including the tea houses, theatre, kabuki, onnagata, and the professions outside the merchants, soldiers, artisans and farmers casts, maybe business not clearly legal... aka chochin/red lantern bars...

A friend of mine, Jon Heese, running a bar business ("The golden Rush" and after that "Hot stuff"), once organised a Jazz music festival and invented a stall, called "Mizu shobai", in which people could kick a football against a gaijin to make goal/hit him (it had a great success and fun).

Nowadays, soccer players organise the third round play, when players shake hands and have a party, a traditional event in rugby.

There was a highly-expected and traditional event of the Tsukuba soccer team (Piero Carninci, Jon, Darren and Oleg) , to organise a barbecue party after each sunday play. The RVC Football club was named for this, namely the "Russian Vodka Ceremony" shots (as in Tequila bum bum).

The Alien Times, or Tsukuba gazzette, fixed those days and the people who orbited around these happenings before the advent of the "happy hours" so "a la mode" in these days.
An interesting aspect of the Alien Times  is the posing of  pictures and contributions by the readers on Tsukuba lifestyle, Tsuchiura surroundings, and Mount Tsukuba. You may find authors list and all their articles in pdf.