Rentals

AVI links to an article about Japanese "rental families." You may rent actors to portray family members. A man who was too embarrassed to admit to his fiance that his parents were dead rented actors to play his parents at their wedding. Another whose wife had died and whose daughter was estranged hired actors to be his wife and daughter, so he wouldn't be so lonely.

It makes for sad reading--"It is not good for man to be alone," but how poorly we often manage the relationships we have, and how hard it is to establish new ones. Once the barrier is down and there is someone present and the illusion of a relationship, some clients aren't content to maintain the play and want something more real. Some, though, are ok with living in illusion.

The rental agency owner says 30-40% of the rental husbands wind up being proposed to by the woman. The story didn't say how many accepted--I suspect few.

But before you think "It's their choice, and it doesn't hurt anybody," notice the additional services available.

If you make a mistake at work, and a disgruntled client or customer demands to see your supervisor, you can hire Ishii to impersonate the supervisor. Ishii, identifying himself as a department head, will then apologize. If the apology isn’t accepted, a different actor can be sent to apologize as the division head. If the division head doesn’t get results, Ishii dispatches a remorseful president. These situations can get complicated, because the real department heads and presidents aren’t aware that they have apologized.