Pity the poor Salaryman

Grey suits and grey jobs. Hierarchical offices run by convention and duty.

It's distinctly bad form to leave the office before your job.

The relationship between salaryman and housewife is notoriously bad.

The Guardian recently reported on the annual competition of Salaryman Senryu (short, sardonic poems on daily life, brief as Haiku but with a comic tone).

The second prize went to this gem (translated into English):

The only warmth in my life is the toilet seat.

Brutal.

Rainy Season

The rainy season has begun.

In line with the rest of the world, it seems the weather is bucking all past trends this year, and is doing as it pleases.

The snow was light, the winter warm, the cherry blossom late.

The rainy season started two weeks late this year.

Late it may be, but nevertheless it rains.

It rains, and is hot.

I don't like the rainy season.

The rainy season doesn't like me.

I went for a run, and nearly drowned from a flood of sweat.

It's so humid that the postcards stuck to my wall have warped with the moisture.

Yatta! ('I did it!')

For the first time, I've managed to get an article printed in a national magazine.

It is in the July/August edition of SONGLINES, Britain's leading world music magazine.

You can see the online version of my guide to the best music in Tokyo by clicking here.

I also took the picture of the Kabuki Theatre (bottom right).

ON SALE NOW!

Hei-ah Cutto (Japanese for 'Haircut')

The Japanese Haircut - far more than mere depillation.

Enter the shop, and, like a smart sushi restaurant, the barbers greet customers with a bright barrage of shouted politesse.

Placed in a chair, and the discussion begins. And soon stutters.

me: "Er, short please."
him: "[unintelligible reply]"
me: "Er. But not too short."
him: "[unintelligible reply]"

Resigned to my fate, I sit back and watch his every snip, eagle-eyed for signs of excessive enthusiasm.

But he keeps his zealotry in check, and even allows my sideys to remain. I ask for a shave as well, the cut-throat razor appealing to my bo-ho tendencies.

A hot towel wrapped around my jowls, I lie back in heated bliss, before my cheeks are lathered with the matronly firmness of a practised hand. Stubble is scraped from my jaw, my cheeks, my neck. As the barber negotiates my adam's apple, I politely ask Sweeney Todd to stop appearing in my mind.

And then he lifts the blade high, too high. Aghast, I realise his intent. He plans to shave my forehead.

My English sensibilities affronted, I shrink from the knife, and squirm out a 'No! No thank you!'

I assumed that such an eccentricity was a recent trend among the fashion-conscious Japanese males - surely people in the past weren't that silly.

Then I found this reference in the Japanese journals of Joseph Campbell, American writer famous for his work in the field of comparative mythology:

"I went for a haircut and since I could not direct my barber in Japanese had to submit to what happened. I found that when a Japanese has a shave the entire face, forehead and all, is shaved. I saved my forehead, but that was all." Tokyo, May 17th, 1955

It's strangely comforting to know that the Japanese male continues to prefer his brow bald, and occidental menfolk continue to fight to preserve that pasture unharvested.

Though one question remains; why do Japanese men want it shaved? Cultural difference, or racial variation. Could there be more fur on the oriental brow?

Thoughts please.

The haircut in question...

Before - the tousled sheep look:

After - shorn like a mewling lamb:


I mourn my lost locks.

Night Waves

These photos were all taken on ferries at night, some on the boat back from Sakurajima (home of Furasato Onsen - see previous post), and some crossing back from Miyajima in the Inland Sea.