Getting a haircut in Japan
One of the first uses I put my gaijin card (foreigner ID card) to was when I went to a barber, pointed at my mug shot and asked for a cut like that one. My Japanese may have improved since then, but neither my hair style nor my choice of cheap cuts has changed. This recent survey from MyVoice looked at how the Japanese view haircuts. Note that I had to delete one entry from the graph to the right, the visiting pro at 0.1%, as it was causing my graphing package a problem.
Demographics
Over the first five days of March 2008 15,004 members of the MyVoice internet successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 1% in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 9% in their forties, and 16% in their fifties.
I just had a haircut this evening in my usual shop nearby a station where I change trains. 2,000 yen for the full works; haircut, shampoo, shave, eyebrow tidying and a 15 second scalp and shoulder massage.
In Q8, containing the list of best haircuts, it’s interesting that the top two for both men and women are the same, that both men and women choose men on the whole, and that many of the people have heavily dyed tonsorial arrangements, and there are almost no traditional straight haired people. I personally think Yukie Nakama has just about the best head of hair in Japan, a lovely long, straight, simple, natural black style. Thinking about it, most of the Japanese women that I consider to be beautiful (including the wife) have natural black hair.
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