My 1st Hair Cut!

Question: What does it mean when you are more nervous to get a Haircut in a foreign country, than you are for your first day of work? Can you associate this with vanity, a case of being scared of scissors near your ears...or just an anxiety condition altogether? Either way, this is me today, when trying to think about the best option for getting a haircut in a barbershop that has probably never s
een the likes of my hair before. 

An interesting aspect of this subject is that not only are there barbershops here, but there are barbershops on nearly every other street corner. They are marked by that red, white and blue spinning pole, which screams desperately for customers....unlike Japan, we got rid of those ugly things in the 80's. So there are many of these, now the question is which barbershop do I let butcher my beautiful, lustrious, brown hair...okay its vanity, I'm okay with that.

The other night, I saw a shop that could have been in Vegas, based on the amount of lights were flashing and the movie-theater looking sign that took up half a block. I soon found out that it was a "barberhsop chain" haha. I thought to myself this might be the way to go because the chance that they speak English is greater I would think, than at a local, community barbershop. However, I also saw a couple intriguiging local barbershops, and like I always say, it's good to support the community. So as I sit on the corner, pondering on whether to turn left (barbershop chain) or right (local), I chose right, because what the hell, it will give me some good material for a blog....I had no idea.

As I ride my bike up street I think about my options. I could go with my boy James' advice and just buzz it all the time, because, hey its safe, I've been doing it lately and its nice during the summer. However, I failed to buy clippers before I left and I haven't found any out here yet. So I think, well, I could have the guy cut it and then if I don't like it, I could have him buzz it. But wait! wouldn't that be a huge insult to a Japanese man, whose entire living is based on his craft and after a half an hour cut, I ask him to erase his entire hair painting!! No way, I can't do this...what a thing to do....On the other hand, I am American and for all I know, for the last 3 weeks I've been an ass-hole nearly every day without even knowing it..either way, I decide against it. So now the decision: do I ask him to cut it, or buzz it? hmm....

I get to the shop, which is up a big hill, and its next to my bank. Now because I mentioned that there are barbershops on every other street corner, you may ask why I picked this particular one. The answer is simple. It has 

 life-sized picture of a black guy with scissors in his hand. His hand moves up and down, which is controlled by a rotating levy. This blew my mind when I saw it. A black dude, with a frow. Whoever this Japanese hair guy is, knows what's going on. So naturally, I chose this one. 

I walk in and the greeting is fucking priceless. Please imagine this if you can because I was speachless at the time. I walk in and see a few barber chairs. I look to my left and there is an old Japanese man sitting down, moments away from eating a delicious looking concoction. He is startled that I'm here, so he says "konichiwa" and stands up. First of all, both his pants and shirt are unbuttoned.... As he speaks to me in Japanese, he puts his clothes together and shows me to the chair. I won't lie to you, I was seconds away from A.) Apologizing and politely excusing myself. B.) Laughing out loud, and looking up in my Japanese phrasebook the words for "teach me everything you know" C.) Shitting my pants and asking if I could borrow his, because I figured he was already half way there...and D.) Laughing my ass off on the inside and because I'm too scared to do anything else, proceeding with this haircut...needless to say, I chose the latter. 

So after he buttons his shirt and pants, I thought it was a kind gesture that he went over to the rusty sink and washed his hands. He sits me down and puts 3 towels all over my head, neck and back. I was draped with towels and instead of a spray bottle, he wet one of them and gave me a good head rub to get my hair nice and damp. Then he proceeded. I'm pretty scared really, just because in the mirror I can see that he's not really holding scissors, instead they really resemble those weed cutters with like 7 inch blades, that make a crunchy, slicing noise, rather than a clean snip...you know what I'm talking about...I love that clean snip, especially when you know the barber has cut American hair before. Call me crazy, but Great Clips scissors sounded pretty damn good at the time, maybe even more than a Chipotle burrito. 

So he's cuttin' away and it's beginning to shape up. He keeps asking me questions and I say, "hi, hi" which means "yes, yes". No idea what he's asking. I figure, the buzz is imminent. He keeps cutting away and it actually isn't looking too bad from where I'm at, and then all of a sudden, this THING swoops right in front of my face. I jump back instinctively and luckily, his weed whackers were in mid-cut, so my head was undammaged. I look up and there is this freakin' bird-like insect. I think it was a dragon fly, but I swear it was like 3 feet long.....It flew in the store through the doorway. So I say "woah" and look at him. He has this look of sheer terror, I think because he knows he almost had one of my ears on his floor. 

Now the Bird Fly is stuck in the shop and it keeps flying around above our heads. The funny thing at this point is that I notice the barber begins to speed up his process. He's more scared than I am, which is tough because if that fucking Pigeon Insect hits one of us, or at least brushes us, my head-area is in serious trouble. He's just scared because if that happens, he's out 3,000 yen. So he's flying through the cut now and its pretty impressive to be honest. 

So he gets done with the 2nd half of my head in record time. I get a nice neck shave with a real razor, which is kind of cool because I've never had that before. Then he gets his mirror and starts showing me the damage. I say this, but really it was okay, other than the thin, feathered, Japanimation look he had going for me. I realized however, when I got home that he only showed me the sides, and didn't let me look at the back. I noticed this because when I get home I take the mirror off my wall and into the bathroom. 

The back lower half of my head looks like Edward Scissorhands got wasted and played a joke on me in my sleep. It's so messed up that I had to learn how to line myself up with my beard trimmer. Doing all this, mind you, with a wall mirror (about 3 feet tall). So other than realizing its gonna be the buzz cut or the barber shop chain from here on out, I did learn how to straighten out the back of my head if I ever need to. So that's good. Quite the experience really. The little things we take for granted in our home country, I tell ya. Next time you get a hair cut, tell the guy what you want in English, for me.