* This essay column is written by a longtime foreign resident of Japan.

The light was red when I got there. It was one of the very few places in Japan where I couldn't run the light. Not a good start. My determination was beginning to drain away and I would have to somehow keep my nerve waiting for the lights to slowly change through amber to green. It was going to be all right, I reassured myself. Just relax. The Marlboro man, macho meditation technique -- imagine a cigarette end glowing and dimming as you breathe in and out -- suddenly came to mind. But before I could inhale, or turn tail and run, the light flicked to green and I had no choice, I was on my way.

Why do I find the simplest and most mundane things such white-knuckle experiences here? This was just a haircut. I'd done it many times before. I'd practiced saying mijikaku for hours in front of a mirror. But this was my first visit to a no-frills, 10-minute, 1,000 yen, all-you-can-cut kiosk.

I usually go to a small barbershop near my office in Tamachi, but that can take 50 minutes to one hour once you get in the chair, and the cut, two shampoos, conditioning, a massage from a machine that really shakes your fillings and the obligatory conversation costs 4,000 yen.

My wife was on one of her regular cost-cutting drives and I was looking for something a little more basic -- I certainly didn't need the massage or a monologue on the Yomiuri Giants or Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara -- something that would take me back to my roots, back to my short back and sides, and a little off the top days.

And apart from a few high-tech touches -- like the flashing red, amber and green lights to tell you how busy the cutters are, and give you some idea of how long you'll have to wait -- the QB-House quick-cut kiosk under the tracks at Yurakucho Station reminded me of the local barbershop my dad used to take me to in my hometown in the north of England, where I was plumped down on a plank of wood across the chair arms to raise me to the required height so that the fearsome demon barber, Mr. Poskitt, could get his clippers to my hair.

Once I'd realized that no money was to change hands -- this was one of those money-in-the-machine-ticket jobs, and obviously a gentleman's establishment -- the kiosk was simplicity itself. I just sat back, asked for what I wanted -- it's always mijikaku or taihen mijikaku -- and prayed that my Japanese was comprehensible enough so that I didn't come out looking like a Buddhist monk or a high-school baseball player, and have to spend the evening looking for a suitable hat to wear for the next month.

The only sound was the buzz of the electric clippers and the occasional irasshaimase as another customer beat the lights, or every 10 minutes an arigato gozaimashita as another shorn head rolled off the cutting line.

I was woken from dreams of Mr. Poskitt when the cutter suddenly pulled out a long pipe from his equipment stand and proceeded to vacuum my head -- a real challenge to my follicles -- to collect all the loose hairs, and some of those still attached I think. It was a far cry from the badger-bristle brush that I was used to in Tamachi -- OK, I was still dreaming -- but it was a vast improvement on Mr. Poskitt, who used to grab the nearest bristled implement -- even the broom he used to very occasionally sweep the hair from the linoleum floor with -- to brush you down.

The cut actually took 15 minutes and I was considering asking for a discount or attempting to retrieve my 1,000 yen note from the machine the way you can get some money back if your pizza doesn't arrive on time. But I wasn't sure if my Japanese was up to it, and my cutter still had that vacuum pipe in his hand, so I thanked him and left, wiser and definitely colder around the collar.

I'd welcome any comments or opinions, in Japanese or English, about my column. You can write or fax me at The Weekly, or e-mail me at jtweekly@japantimes.co.jp

The Japan Times Weekly: Oct. 25, 2003
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