Japanese cat cafes

I found the following article on the Huffington Post, I thought folks
here would relate. Just to keep things legal, the web address is:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_183985.html

TOKYO -- I followed the instructions of the watchful cashier and took
off my shoes, sanitized my hands, placed my bag in a locker and dangled
an ID card ("customer #18") from a lanyard around my neck. The cashier
then gave me a once over and a shallow bow, and I padded quietly into
the sitting room of the cafe.

"She's the prettiest girl we have at our cafe. Everybody wants to touch
her, but we ask that customers only do so if she doesn't resist you," a
waitress told me.

She didn't resist. And since I was paying for the privilege, I leaned in
and stroked her cheek. She was as lovely as the waitress had promised: a
big-eyed, silky soft, compliant 2-year-old Russian Blue cat.

I was at Calico, one of Tokyo's increasingly popular cat cafes, where
customers seeking human and feline companionship pay to sip tea and
stroke one of the 20-odd resident cats, representing 17 different breeds.

In an increasingly childless and aging nation, cat cafes fill a void.
The more fortunate Japanese are the middle-aged couples who cradle
Dachshunds like grandchildren at car dealerships and the young women who
hand feed their Maltese puppies on park benches. For those who live with
long work hours, no-pet apartments and work-related travel, there are
cat cafes.

I first heard of Calico cat cafe when it opened in March 2007, but then
it was an oddity and the preserve of lonely women and cat fanciers. It
is now staggeringly popular. This March it opened a second branch in the
high-rent Shinjuku business and shopping district. Last October it
published a glossy coffee table book featuring its "feline staff." The
original branch is so packed that reservations are recommended on weekends.

Browsing in a bookstore, I found 39 establishments listed in the "cat
cafe yellow page" section of a magazine. Calico advertises itself as a
great "date spot," a place to make "friends" -- both cats and humans --
and a "fun place" to swing by after work.

Tokyo wasn't always like this. When I grew up here in the 1980s, people
had both children and pets. But in the past decade, the Japanese have
chosen to have fewer of both. The fertility rate, or average number of
children born to a woman, was 3.65 in 1950, but had dropped to 2.13 by
1970. By the time I was born in 1980, it was 1.75. The rate now hovers
at a little above one child per woman. The estimate for 2009 is that an
average woman will bear 1.21 children.

When I visited Calico cat cafe on a Saturday afternoon, it was packed
almost to capacity with young couples on dates, older married couples
making an afternoon of it and young women in ones and twos. One shy man
struggled to draw attention from the cats, the people and even the staff.

A bored husband slept, mouth gaping and fingers loosened around the cat
toy in his lap. Men and women jockeyed for prime positions near the
waking cats and took photos on cellphone cameras of cats snoozing in
baskets and lapping at water bowls.

A waiter handed me a laminated page of rules: wear your cat-access pass
around your neck at all times; no one under 5th grade may enter; cats
too young to be held have scarves around their necks; do not hold or
stroke a cat if it resists you; never wake a napping cat; bringing cat
nip or cat food to the cafe is strictly forbidden.

"Is this a rare breed, this one that looks like a poodle?" a woman asked
a waitress while her husband snapped a photo of the sour-faced cat.

"Oh yes, Kukuru is very rare. She's one of around only 20 in all of
Japan," the waitress replied. The husband grunted, impressed, and
stroked the sleeping cat.

A few yards away, two young women waged a near silent and very polite
battle over a complimentary plastic bag of six pieces of dried cat food.
(Customers were permitted to use the food to try to lure cats to come
closer.)

All but three of the cats were asleep when I left the room full of
adults vying for their attention, crawling on the floor with cat toys
shaped like miniature fishing rods and brandishing their cellphone
cameras. As I paid up, the cashier bowed and offered me a complimentary
postcard-sized photograph of cats that had been made into a sticker.

It had been a bargain, albeit a strange one: An hour of commitment-free
cat stroking cost me only $9.

"EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote:

I found the following article on the Huffington Post, I thought folks
here would relate. Just to keep things legal, the web address is:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_183985.html

TOKYO -- I followed the instructions of the watchful cashier and took
off my shoes, sanitized my hands, placed my bag in a locker and dangled
an ID card ("customer #18") from a lanyard around my neck. The cashier
then gave me a once over and a shallow bow, and I padded quietly into
the sitting room of the cafe.

"She's the prettiest girl we have at our cafe. Everybody wants to touch
her, but we ask that customers only do so if she doesn't resist you," a
waitress told me.

[snip]

I think this is adorable, but there's something about it that reminds
me of a brothel.

I really don't understand why people in Japan are so much less likely to
have pets now than they used to. Haven't people, especially in big cities,
always lived in apartments? Did building owners used to allow pets, and
now they don't? I really hate that - I think it's as bad as not allowing
kids. People obviously need to have someone to love, and if they don't
have pets or kids, many people feel that their lives are diminished. And
especially if you live in a city, you're a lot less in contact with the
natural world. Pets can give us some of that, too.

--
Joyce ^..^

To email me, remove the XXX from my user name.

wrote in news:49dbd1a1$0$1635
:

People obviously need to have someone to love, and if they don't
have pets or kids, many people feel that their lives are diminished. And
especially if you live in a city, you're a lot less in contact with the
natural world. Pets can give us some of that, too.

Makes me think of pen-raised veal, or those chickens that spend their lives
in cages with no room to move.

It's like a dystopian SF movie where people are jammed in cramped spaces
due to some apocalyptic disaster.

wrote:
"EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote:


"She's the prettiest girl we have at our cafe. Everybody wants to touch
her, but we ask that customers only do so if she doesn't resist you," a
waitress told me.

[snip]

I think this is adorable, but there's something about it that reminds
me of a brothel.

I really don't understand why people in Japan are so much less likely to
have pets now than they used to. Haven't people, especially in big cities,
always lived in apartments? Did building owners used to allow pets, and
now they don't? I really hate that - I think it's as bad as not allowing
kids. People obviously need to have someone to love, and if they don't
have pets or kids, many people feel that their lives are diminished. And
especially if you live in a city, you're a lot less in contact with the
natural world. Pets can give us some of that, too.

Some places it's illegal for landlords to discriminate against children,
which has never made much sense to me, since kids can trash an apartment
faster than any cat or dog I ever encountered. Landlords can't demand
larger damage deposits from people with children, either, although they
can for pets. (And I had never encountered additional monthly "pet
rent" charges until I moved to Arizona.)

ScratchMonkey wrote:
wrote in news:49dbd1a1$0$1635
:

People obviously need to have someone to love, and if they don't
have pets or kids, many people feel that their lives are diminished. And
especially if you live in a city, you're a lot less in contact with the
natural world. Pets can give us some of that, too.

Makes me think of pen-raised veal, or those chickens that spend their lives
in cages with no room to move.

I would imagine any "cat cafe" would be a good deal larger than the
average human apartment, and plenty of indoor-only cats spend their
entire lives in an owner's apartment without apparent distress.


It's like a dystopian SF movie where people are jammed in cramped spaces
due to some apocalyptic disaster.

How is it any different from having a clowder of resident cats anywhere?
(The Hemingway estate, for example?) The cats' rights are respected
(patrons are not allowed to pet a cat unless it's willing to be petted,
nor are they allowed to awaken sleeping cats). One thing's su if
you go there to meet new people as well as cats, you can at least be
sure you have ONE interest in common - cats.

On Apr 8, 1:08*pm, "EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)"
wrote:

Some places it's illegal for landlords to discriminate against children,
which has never made much sense to me,

When my mum was buying a flat she mentioned the "No pets" clause as
she had agreed to look after my brothers cat while he was staying
there for 6 months. She was told they put that in so if people for
example got a large dog or dogs and chucked them out to run wild all
day they had something they could invoke. Our flat has a "no pets"
clause but all housing officials have ever said to us is "Isn't she
such a cute kitten?" (Thankfully Sarsi hides when strangers turn up so
they're getting Dunzi otherwise they might think differently)

Lesley

Slave of the Fabulous Furballs

ScratchMonkey wrote:

wrote in news:49dbd1a1$0$1635
:

People obviously need to have someone to love, and if they don't
have pets or kids, many people feel that their lives are diminished. And
especially if you live in a city, you're a lot less in contact with the
natural world. Pets can give us some of that, too.

Makes me think of pen-raised veal, or those chickens that spend their lives
in cages with no room to move.

Which makes you think of that? The cat cafes, or people living in big,
crowded cities? I'm going to assume you mean the latter. I kind of doubt
that the cats are crammed into tiny cages in those cafes. Whereas in a
city like Tokyo, the population is quite dense.

It's like a dystopian SF movie where people are jammed in cramped spaces
due to some apocalyptic disaster.

But with a lot more creature comforts.

--
Joyce ^..^

To email me, remove the XXX from my user name.

wrote:

When my mum was buying a flat she mentioned the "No pets" clause as
she had agreed to look after my brothers cat while he was staying
there for 6 months. She was told they put that in so if people for
example got a large dog or dogs and chucked them out to run wild all
day they had something they could invoke.

When I was apartment-hunting, the ad for the place I now live in said
"no pets". I called anyway, because I'd learned that "no pets" often
means "no dogs". Sure enough, cats were OK. And I later discovered that
every other tenant in the building had cats.

--
Joyce ^..^

To email me, remove the XXX from my user name.

wrote in news:49dd0c17$0$1612
:

Which makes you think of that? The cat cafes, or people living in big,
crowded cities? I'm going to assume you mean the latter.

Correct. The cats live in luxury. The people live in pens. Comfortable but
cramped pens.

ScratchMonkey wrote:
wrote in news:49dd0c17$0$1612
:

Which makes you think of that? The cat cafes, or people living in big,
crowded cities? I'm going to assume you mean the latter.

Correct. The cats live in luxury. The people live in pens. Comfortable but
cramped pens.

But unlike "factory farmed" livestock, humans have a choice!