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Animal Restaurant Employees - Fair or Not?

| Print | By | December 5, 2008 11:50 AM

It appears that many Japanese animal lovers cannot bear to be far away from their pets, even when they are busy in their work-a-day world. A couple of creative solutions have solved a dilemma many of us in the U.S. face daily.

The Cat Café in Tokyo house 14 feline residents which visitors can play with on their lunch hour or later in the day after work all for a reasonable fee.

Mr. Takafumi Fukui even quit his job in a television game company to open the Cat Café where his love for felines can constantly be expressed. Read more about it by visiting here.

Cat "employees" at the Cat Cafe in Tokyo

I write with a modicum of assurance, that while this other novel idea may be one which is unrivaled, at the same time I am having a little trouble wrapping my head around whether this monkey business is a good idea.

According to an article I ran across online the other day, a Japanese sake house in the Tokyo area has employed a pair of macaque monkeys as waiters to serve patrons drinks with the additional responsibility of handing out towels to their customers. These macaques are named Yat-chan and Fuku-chan. While both of these little guys are also household pets, their owners had them certified by the "powers that be" to become bona fide employees.

According to Reuters, "Yat-chan first learned his new profession by just watching me working in the restaurant. It all started when one day I gave him a hot towel out of curiosity and he brought the towel to the customer," Kaoru Otsuka, the 63-year-old owner of the tavern, explained.

A Macaque

Since Fuku-chan is the younger of the two, his task is mainly to give out towels to patrons to clean their hands prior to being served, which is a Japanese custom. The older macaque is permitted to serve drinks as well as dispensing towels. I guess he is of legal simian years to be able to handle alcoholic beverages.

They are paid for their work in soya beans, and only work a maximum of two hours a day. Quoting Takayoshi Soeno, a sake house regular, "The monkeys are actually better waiters than some really bad human ones,"
The owner of the Saki house has since added three baby monkeys to his collection, hoping that he can also train them to join the other macaques in his tavern.

Do you think that this a fair to the macaques?

After you watch the video, leave a comment with your opinions.

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Vicki December 6, 2008 10:23 AM

Well leave it up to the Japanese to come up with an idea like this. The training must be very intense. I bet the customers get a kick out of them.

Diana Bauer December 6, 2008 11:01 AM

I think that the monkeys probably enjoy the interaction and attention from the humans. Two ghours a day can hardly be too taxing for them, and the mental and physical stimulation are probably very good for them. And, knowing a bit about monkeys, if they really didn't want to do it, there would be some (perhaps violent) misbehavior. Monkeys are trained as companion animals for the handicapped, and that is not considered abuse, so why not this?

Margie December 6, 2008 12:48 PM

Several years ago, my husband and I managed a gas station. Customers would come to the pay window where the money would change hands and change returned. Our dog Thor got curious about meeting all these strangers and wanted his share of their attention so I gave him a chair to stand on. He really liked meeting folks and it wasn't very long after that when folks would start to hand me the money he just reached out and took it from them then handed it to me. He became an instant hit and no one seemed to mind the rather "wet" change they received from him. Our other dog, his mother, had no interest in the procedings. Thor was super special. I really miss him.