Facing my fear

There was something I had to do which I was dreading. Something I have done a hundred times before but that I knew I would have to do again when I was in Japan. In preparation for such a certainty I did it a few days before I left for Japan in order to give myself as much time as possible to prepare for the next time.

You are going to be disappointed, it was a haircut. I needed a haircut and so did Anna, the Canadian girl who is very tomboyish. On Sunday the 6^th of May we set out into the pouring rain in search of haircuts. I had been worrying about this moment for weeks, but as my hair was growing into my eyes it was definitely time to bite the bullet. The thing that worried me the most was the language barrier. When I get a haircut in the UK it is all done with numbers, so I am very out of practice with knowing how to describe hair in real words. For my part I was hoping that gestures and maybe some sample pictures in the hairdresser’s would do the job for me. Actually, I did have a picture of just what I wanted my hair to look like, but I couldn’t use it because it was in my passport and I would look like I was trying to steal someone’s identity.

Anna’s plan to get around the language problem was to point at my head because by a staggering coincidence my hair was just the length she wanted hers to be.

Japan is full of salons and barbers to choose from. Our search criteria was: cheap, but not too cheap, and that there be more than one hairdresser available at the time. The cheapest place we found was 990 yen, £4.15, incidentally in the UK a haircut costs me £10. Opposite the station we saw a place on the first floor of a shopping area. Further investigation revealed it was called, “Freak Hair.” We walked passed the window gazing in and it was empty apart from two female hairdressers standing idle. Anna and I huddled around the corner to discuss what we thought.

We went for it. Sliding our umbrellas into the rack outside the door we entered and asked how much for a cut. 3900 yen they said in a friendly manner. £16, pricey but not too bad. We both asked our wallets if this was all right, they both said yes. We nodded our acceptance and suddenly we were customers.

They took our coats and then led us to comfy leather chairs. The woman who was cutting my hair draped a plastic cover over me and then clipped something around my neck for extra protection from falling hair. Then the unexpected began, she span my chair around so that I was no longer facing the mirror and pushed a switch causing the chair to tilt backwards and my head to rest in a previously unnoticed sink. “Ok,” I thought, “so it’s not just a cut.”

I haven’t had my hair washed like that for years. When I was young and had no control over my own hair I sported a bowl cut and would go with my mum to her salon. I remember the smell of banana shampoo and not knowing where to look, oh and the view of the woman’s armpit hair above me. Actually, I think those last two points are probably related.

As I felt the cold porcelain around my neck and looked up the nose of my Japanese hairdresser I remembered those days. She asked me a question that I had never been asked before. I managed to figure it out as, “do you want me to shave you?” I quickly said no, then tried to say it more politely as “no thankyou.” Her response was to drape a piece of white material over my face and eyes so that the world turned white. This was so unexpected that I found it hilarious, and it solved the problem of where to look.

Once I was washed she tilted my head forward and wrapped my hair up in a towel. She spun me around again so I was back in front of the mirror. Then she walked away and from a secret door came a slightly chubby Japanese man who I wondered whether they had called in especially. He asked me what I wanted and thus came the hard part.

These are the words I used: “Front, back, short, left, right (because I didn’t know the word for sides)” I gestured forwards and flat. I held up some of my hair and indicated to cut half of it, I said “half cuto” and looked hopeful. He kind of grunted and it began.

I am rather biased against salons because of my bowl cut, which I loathed. Discovering barber’s was an important part of my life. I think that salons run on the principle of trying to keep as much hair on your head as possible so that you come back sooner. Barber’s, on the other hand, try to be as efficient as possible by taking off a lot of hair very quickly. This was painfully obvious to me as my hairdresser danced around my hair with a pair of scissors as if thinking “Oh where shall I snip next? ummm, over here. Oh yes, now where? Umm, how about that hair there.”

He made conversation by asking how old I am, where I am from and what I am doing in Japan. When he had finished he showed me the mirror and I asked him to cut it shorter. He looked shocked and I tried to look innocent and pleading. He said “OK” and walked away. There was another male customer at that point, he was sitting behind me and I could see him in the mirror. My male hairdresser went over to this customer and they had a laugh about something. When he came back he started cutting my hair again but I could see the reflection of the other guy looking at me. I felt kind of uncomfortable.

When he’d finished for the second time he showed me what the back of my head now looked like. It looked better, and so did the front. I thanked him and he walked off. The female hairdresser came back and spun me around again. She was re-washing my hair, getting rid of all the loose hair I guess. When that was done she sat me up and brought out a pestle and mortar with steam rising from it. “Ok,” I thought. She lifted out whichever one of a pestle and mortar is the crushing tool and started rubbing it against my face. I could feel a hot thick moisture covering my skin and what followed was a long sharp piece of metal, a traditional barbershop razor.

It was too late to complain. She started to slide the razor against the side of my head and I tried to keep my head still. Unhelpful thoughts of her cutting me and blood crossed my mind. Then I thought about how awful it would be if I found it ticklish - but surely that can’t happen. By now we must have evolved a means whereby things that can kill us can’t tickle us too.

Once that was over she started putting wax on my hair and styling it up. This must be the best part of being a hairdresser, you get to play with people’s hair as much as you like; your own lifesized doll that you don’t have to look after.

Finally the haircuts were complete and me and Anna stood up ready to leave. But there was yet another surprise to our 3900 yen, a free drink. Either, hot coffee, cold coffee, ice tea or orange juice. I went for cold coffee, which came with a little tub of milk and a tiny tiny pot of syrup. We sat down at a small counter in front of the television and more surprises revealed themselves. For example there was a small set of perfumes we could help ourselves too, a tray of free cigarettes, magazines and around the television shelves of manga comicbooks. We sat for some time and then made our escape, they brought out our coats, we paid them, they showed us to the door, bowed and said thank you very much.

It was over.

Interestingly in Japan they don’t let any hair fall on the floor, the chairs have special rods that the plastic cover gets attached to. Together they form a hair trap on your lap and at the end of the cut they collect it all together in the plastic. Of course, I had to learn this the hard way when I moved too much and the rod on my chair detached so the hair fell off. Woopsy.