A mama-san, or mamasan, is a woman who works in a supervisory role in certain establishments in East Asia, typically those related to sex work, but sometimes in drinking places as well. Papa-san may be used to refer to a man in a similar position. The drag-dressing male proprietors of okama bars are also commonly referred to as Mama-san. To at least some extent, these can be considered the local equivalents of a pimp or madam, although the conventions of bar fine prostitution in Asia are quite different from those of either street or brothel prostitution in the United States. The term originally comes from Japanese, where it is a term for a woman who works as a supervisor at a bar, nightclub, brothel, or similar business. The suffix -san is a polite honorific attached to a person's name or title. The familiarity with the term by U.S. soldiers in Japan after WWII probably has had some influence