Haircut in Japan
Before I went to Harajuku on Sunday I prepeared my nerves for one of the more daunting challanges of my exchange year. Until now I had delayed my trip to the hair "saloon",as the Japanese occasionally like to spell it, but now my hair was getting far too long. A convenient side affect of my perfectly rational fear of getting a haircut was that I was forced to learn how to do my hair with wax, something which I previously haven't had the patience for, but something I now had to learn of necessity. Nevertheless with my head beginning to look like a hairy mushroom it was time to go.
The "saloon" was just around the corner, and I had brought along a silly little picture on my cell phone to aid the... what do you call em? Haircutter? Stylist? First my hair was washed, something which wouldn't really be worth mentioning were it not for the silly little tissue paper they placed carefully over my eyes, presumably to stop any stray droplets of water. The absurdity almost had me laughing. After my hair had been washed the haircutter/stylist/hairwasher said "Otsukaresama desu" which pretty much means "Good job", something usually said to your pals after some hard excercise or a day's work. Despite knowing that this was just another quirk of the Japanese service industry treating the customer as a god, the slightest patience of whom is to be praised, it did feel oddly patronizing, especially as all the other staff also congratulate you on bothering with the difficult task of letting someone wash your hair.
The best thing however, was that at one point the main haircutter/stylist fetched a cute young girl to give me a head, shoulders and upper back massage, which was a exceedingly pleasant surprise, as there is nothing like this in Finland that I know of. The price of the whole shebang was also only around 2200 yen if I recall (Do your own calculations.), almost half as cheap as the the place I usually went to in Finland, with results as good if not better. I also no longer see why you should bother going to Akihabara to pay much more to have your fingers massaged by a girl in a maid outfit when you can get a perfectly satisfying, proper massage from a perfectly good looking girl at your local hair salon, with a complimentary haircut thrown in.
...and that is probably the longest bit of writing I will ever do about me getting a haircut.
Sakari
13 Comments
Reader Comments (13)
Nice post sakari.
I was already wondering how it is to get your hair cut in japan ^^;
I will try getting my hait cut for sure this summer when i stay for 5months.
Oh by the way, i added you already to my links ;)
thanks
mata ne~
neko
Wait, you went for over two months without a haircut while your hair wasn't exactly short even when you left? :S
Hey, that's not bad. I pay around the same price here in San Francisco without the complimentary services.
By the way, your header image is very nice, but file size is too big (400kb) because it's in PNG format. I converted to JPG and now it's around 150kb. Use it if you like:
http://img380.imageshack.us/img380/7780/bannernewkq3.jpg
Wow, sounds like a really awesome haircut experience. I have never seen these sort of extras here. I should try getting a haircut in Japan the next time I head over, lol.
okay... now that you've done it, i've better make myself go to a hairdresser, too... so far, i've been too afraid to let any japanese person touch my hair :D who knows what they might do! my hair has started to look so horrible that actually, i better hurry and get a haircut as soon as possible...
@Neko - Thanks for that - may our blogs live long and prosper!
@Olli - yes, I suppose you get the hairy mushroom reference better than anyone else.
@Re-I - Awesome thanks! It's already in use. I'd noticed it used to be a bit slow to load.
@double - I should suggest that as their slogan: "Awesome haircut experience!"
@sonja - Enjoy the massage, if you get one. If not, enjoy the silly piece of paper they put over your eyes.
It always surprises me how cheap some things can be in Japan (compared to Europe that is), while other things are terribly expensive. Here in the Netherlands you'd spend at least twice that kind of money on a proper haircut (especially with all those awesome extra services, lol).
There's also another thing I'd like to ask you: where I live it's very common for the haircutter to talk to you about all sorts of stuff (the weather, etc.) while you get your hair cut. Does that happen in Japan as well or is that something haircutters only do around here?
Yep, they talk to you, I think they do that everwhere.
Can you post a photo of your new japanese haircut or is it just the same as normal!
Yosh!
i think it was a wonderful experiance, thanks for the post, but i have a question, whene you went to get your hair cut did you tell the "haircuter,...." what kind of hair cut you want?
i'm ok with SAC suggestion.
I took a dodgy picture I found on the internet with me.
The haircut is not really different from my usual, but the haircutter/whatever taught me a few tricks with the wax and sold me some of the miracle sludge which is the stuff doing the magic. Besides, how do YOU even know what my hair normally looks like SAC?
I'd feel a bit vain putting a picture of just my head in, so you'll have to wait for a picture with me conveniently in it for that.
"a cute young girl to give me a head"
i was like o_O
Hahah. They really do go out of their way to serve their customers.