Tokyo – In Japan, some people play golf on weekends and some form long lines in the Ginza district to watch first-run foreign films. A knowing few go to the barbershop.
A trip to a Japanese barbershop is an odyssey into the country’s economic miracle, a glimpse at the same attention to detail that has made “Japan Inc.” the envy of the capitalist world. It is more than simply getting a haircut. Customers go to escape the hustle and bustle of Tokyo’s frenetic pace. The go to complain about local politics and catch up on the latest neighbourhood scuttlebutt. But most of all, they go to be cranked up high in the barber’s chair, to assume for at least one precious moment – regardless of their walk of life – that honorific stature uniquely revered in Japan: that of okyakusama, or customer.