After being in Japan for nearly two months I decided to bite the bullet and try out my poor Japanese language skills at the barber shop. Although the results could have been much worse, I was not the happiest customer when I left. Neither was Guillaume, who decided to get his haircut on the same day.
Immediately after entering, we heard the familiar "Irasshaimase!" shrieks by the employees, bidding us welcome. Before I had a chance to take off my jacket, I was ushered to a barber's chair. The man who sat me down was obviously the barber. He had a rat-like face, with a thin moustache, and he made me very uncomfortable. He was wearing a green jacket with least a dozen small pockets, each with the handles of slightly different sized pairs of scissors sticking out. He looked at me and immediately knew I was going to be "one of those customers".
I had rehearsed in my mind what to ask, so when he looked at me with that blank look of "What the hell do you want me to do?", I clearly told him, in Japanese, that I wanted him to clip the sides and back of my head with the #3 clippers, and leave the top 2 cm long (Japan uses the metric system).
The Ratman just looked at me, confused. I repeated my request, this time a little less confident that I was indeed asking for a haircut. The Ratman turned to a woman beside him and spoke quickly in Japanese. She came over to me and asked "You want your hair short?". Why else was I here? I said yes, and the Ratman looked relieved. He then disregarded my previous request, and proceeded to give me Default Haircut #5.
Unlike in Canada, cutting someone's hair in Japan is a team effort. The Ratman was the hair cutter, and nothing more. He knew only how to use the scissors, so my clipper request had to be passed along to the clipper man, which it wasn't. The Ratman cut my hair dry, then asked if I wanted a shampoo. I declined, and he thankfully went away, his duty with my hair completed. He was replaced by the Clip & Shave Man who finished off Default Haircut #5. He used a straight razor to not only frighten me, but also to trim my sideburns and nape hair. When he asked me, razor in hand, if I wanted a shave, I declined using all the words I knew for "No". He just smiled, relieved that the foreigner's haircut was finally finished.
I sat down in the waiting area while Guillaume was just finishing. I finally had a chance to see myself in the mirror. Most barbers don't realize that when I take my glasses off, I am totally putting myself at their mercy. They could give me a mohawk, and I wouldn't realize it until I get out of the chair. My hair didn't look bad; it was a little longer than I would have liked, but I can live with it.
All that fun for a measly 1600 yen ($22 Canadian).