Teaching English in Taiwan wasn't always as easy as ABC, so days would often unwind drinking with the betel-nut-chewing, red-gob-hawking locals.

We would sit on dirty plastic stools around a wobbly table on the sidewalk, downtown in one of the world's most polluted cities. The air was usually hazardous to breathe, and rats and cockroaches scurried about everywhere. I wanted to drink and soak up a bit of the culture, and the locals wanted to "gambei" (cheers) with a foreign lady.

Then one day a couple of friends said to me, "You could get paid to do that," comparing it to their old jobs as hostesses in a seedy Tokyo nightclub district. Only the glitz and glamour of Roppongi sounded a tad more upscale as they prattled on with three years worth of titillating tales about a razzle-dazzle lifestyle of fine dining, exquisite gifts and excessive partying.