``There’s a distinct level of technique between Japanese barbers and foreign barbers,″ he wrote. One of Japan’s most popular writers, Haruki Murakami, was so horrified by the brusque manner and bare-bones service at foreign barbershops he wrote an essay about it. In central Tokyo’s Shimbashi station, for example, low-budget barbers are offering harried white-collar workers snappy haircuts at 1,000 yen ($8).īut most Japanese still expect the full treatment. Barber schools no longer teach such techniques, but barbers still practice them.Īnd the trend toward discount prices is having an impact. Today’s government, however, is trying to roll back some of the excesses, arguing that ear and nose hair is needed to filter air and keep out foreign objects. Barbershops cropped up in Tokyo and Yokohama. Barbering got a boost in 1871, when the government ordered topknots cut as part of its drive toward Westernization. The barber inserts a finger into your ear and then gently taps her knuckle with her other hand.Ĭlose attention to hair is nothing new in Japan, where hairdressing began hundreds of years ago to keep samurai topknots well-coiffed. The final flourish, though, can make the first-time customer squirm _ an ear massage. The experience winds down neatly, with the barber laying a white cloth over your mouth as he trims your nose hairs, and then cleans your ears with a feathery cotton swab. ``They come here because beauty salons won’t shave them,″ explained one barber. Older Japanese women make special trips to the barber to get that special, just-shaved freshness, which Japanese say gives the skin a lighter sheen. You sit stock-still when your barber wipes the blade _ and then shaves the rims of your ears. The whole face _ cheekbones and forehead included _ is gently lathered, and the barber skillfully glides a hefty razor across your face, taking care to root out any stray hairs between your eyebrows. The Japanese have not risen to the top of global industry by fudging the details, and they apply the same thoroughness of designing Toyota engines to barbershop shaves: not a pore is left untouched. It’s time for a shave _ on parts of your face you’d never expect. Close your eyes and relax as your barber _ or ``barberess″ _ rubs your shoulders and runs her thumbs up and down your spine. Next comes an uneventful shampoo, with some vigorous scrubbing of the scalp, a rinse and dry.Īfter that, an unexpected twist for a Westerner: a full back and shoulder massage. After several trips fruitlessly urging my barber to hack away with abandon, I finally wised up _ and requested a ``4-centimeter cut.″ So vague directives like ``short″ won’t cut it with barbers whose greatest fear is upsetting a customer by trimming too much. Japan’s harried workers are under the gun to perform flawlessly maitre d’s at crowded restaurants are so afraid of being wrong they sometimes refuse to estimate the wait for a table. Just pick a number and it’s smooth sailing.īut off-the-cuff instructions can get complicated. Some barbers offer a menu consisting of 20 or so passport-size photos of different hairstyles, usually starting at around 3,600 yen ($28). Nearly all barbershops here are places where customers are babied for an hour or more _ and nothing above the neck is left untouched.Ī phalanx of trendy-looking ``barbers,″ many of them women, bow in greeting to the unkempt customer and guide him to a chair for the full treatment _ and a lesson in Japanese precision, pampering and thoroughness.įirst come the instructions. After cutting your hair and massaging your shoulders, the white-smocked barber holds up a gleaming razor between finger and thumb _ and runs it smoothly across your lathered forehead.įor anyone in need of a quick, cheap haircut, Japan is the wrong country.
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