The other day I decided my hair had grown long enough, and that it was time to go get it cut. I’d been delaying because my last haircut had been a special one for me, obtained in a barber shop in “Twin Peaks” during my journey to Snoqualmie, Washington over the summer, but the time had finally come. There are many options for getting a haircut in Japan, from hip stylists who make you look like a JPOP star to old-school traditional barber shops, like the cool 85+ year old man who used to tell me what Japan was like in the years after World War II while he cut my hair. These days my favorite place to get a haircut is my local onsen public bath, which has a barber shop on the premises as well as a small restaurant. Getting one’s hair cut then taking a bath to wash away the bristly hairs is the highest point in the advancement of civilization so far.(Another thing I’ve noticed, it’s quite common to see heterosexual men cutting hair. The guy who cuts mine loves to go on about his wife and child and how he’s practicing English. Are there hetero hair-care professions in the U.S. anymore?)
Getting haircuts in Japan can be quite awesome, though not as moe as this.
