If Vince Patchwork clashed with Japanese culture in many ways, he rarely felt it. One of the few exceptions was his three-monthly visit to the barber. As far as he could see, the average Japanese man felt that his monthly haircut was a pampered treat that he could hardly do without. For him, it was a time to relax and be preened. For Vince, it was quite the opposite and maybe as painful as having a tooth removed.
Vince had, after all, gone to high school during the seventies when every school boy wanted to grow his hair long in imitation of rock idols like Robert Plant and Rod Stewart. It was an open symbol of rebellion. There were wars to be fought against and love to be made. Vince was very grateful that most of the sixties didn't reach Australia until he was old enough to appreciate it. His principal, Mad Dog Morgan, had other ideas and, strap in hand, would parade the rows of boys, ordering the head prefect to measure the distance between the hairline and the collar of anyone who appeared to be infringing The Rule. The Rule was that a minimum of half an inch should separate collar and curls. If nothing else, it taught Vince how to stand straight.
Even today, Vince Patchwork hates having a haircut. But he isn't trying to grow it long. Instead he prefers it short, very short and would sport a skin head or a crew cut if Connie hadn't once threatened to divorce him if his hair ever got shorter than an inch and a half. Although Connie has never measured it with a foot long ruler or wielded a strap, her threat carried much more weight than Mad Dog Morgan's ever did. As Vince's hair got sparser, Connie preferred it to get longer on the eaves.
As for Vince himself, he had had his fill of western style barbers ever since the age of 13 when he had seen the possibility of saving 20 cents on his haircut, money that could have been well spent elsewhere, by going to the oldest barber in Collins Street. The man had not put a pudding bowl on his head and shaved around it, but the effect had been much the same. He had endured three weeks of ridicule from his peers and approving smiles from Mad Dog Morgan. He had also suffered one barber of Polish extraction, who believed that long hair was the principle cause for the rise in crime and the decline in moral standards across the globe. Vince could admire the man's convictions in his own trade, but quickly switched to another barber. He became a regular. He never did find out the man's name, but this barber could cut Vince's hair in less than eleven minutes on a rainy day, less than seven if it were fine.
Finding a decent barber in Yokohama, who spoke no English, was a difficult task. Vince had already had one disastrous appointment with Connie's hairdresser. To this day, Vince could not remember how she had talked him into it. He did remember scoffing at the very idea and Connie claiming: "Of course, he does men's hair!" Occasions when he was right and she was wrong were, however, rare, and indeed were to be savoured. So rare, in fact, that it was worth taking a few risks. Yes, he went along to her hairdresser. No, the man couldn't cut hair unless he was going to put a perm through it afterwards. In order to cover up his mistakes, the hairdresser spoke far too much, asking questions about this and that in very bad English while whipping Vince's curls into a goulash and applying super glue so that it would stay that way. Then, he insisted on taking a Polaroid shot of the disaster, so that he could botch it up in exactly the same way, next time.
Vince had already decided that there wasn't going to be a next time and went to one of three local barber shops just around the corner from his home in Saedocho. The business was run by a man and a woman in their sixties, Mr. and Mrs. Matsuura. Vince guessed that neither of them had ever really been trained to cut hair, that they had once been farmers who had since sold their land and needing something to do had taken on a barber shop as a hobby.
He actually received his first haircut from Mrs. Matsuura. She was a wizened old specimen with a practical sense of humour and straight to the point way with her words. She was the kind of woman, Vince imagined, who had got Japan back on its feet after World War 2 and Vince sometimes wondered if she hadn't done it singlehandedly. Vince had not been studying Japanese for very long at this stage, so armed with only two words of appropriate Japanese - mo (shorter) and stop (stop) - and an expanse of hidden talent for mime, he explained exactly how he wanted his hair cut. Mrs. Matsuura, who definitely knew better, disobeyed as many of Vince's instructions as possible, but, at the end of the whole ordeal, he had a reasonable haircut and had avoided all the normal barbaric practises of barbers in Japan in which most of their clients delighted.
He had not had his finger or toe nails clipped, pared, filed, polished, varnished and engraved. He had not been pummelled or subjected to a collar bone breaking shoulder massage. He had not been shaved on his chin or anywhere else. No hair oils, artificial colourings, creams or cements had been applied.
By the time of his second visit, it became obvious Mrs. Matsuura had decided that Vince was really just too much trouble and he was handed over to Mr. Matsuura, a man with a sanguine complexion and a Father Christmas figure to match. Vince's new barber didn't speak any English. Nor could he cut hair. But he made up for both of these by speaking as loud as he possibly could in Japanese, filling Vince in, no doubt, on both the latest jokes and the local gossip. He was accompanied by both the radio and television which were on full blast. The TV reception was so bad that Vince could only barely make out the image amid the war of dots on the screen, but the sound was good and loud.
Mr. Matsuura seemed to have a perpetual runny nose which he stemmed with little wads of toilet paper that were inserted up both nostrils. Vince could undoubtedly have painted a more revolting picture of Mr. Matsuura, but the truth of the matter was that, within the space of one haircut, he had come to like the man so much that he actually began to look forward to his three monthly trim.
It was not only that Mr. Matsuura became the first Japanese barber ever to finish a haircut in less than an hour and that he stunned the critics by repeating the feat every time Vince decided to have a cut. No, there was something naively good-humoured and good-natured about Mr. Matsuura. Vince had no doubts that all the business acumen in the family belonged to his wife. Connie was horrified by the succession of crooked cuts that Vince brought home from the barber's. Some were so bad that she felt compelled to bring out the scissors and try to restore some sense of balance.
"Why don't you get a new barber?" she would nag at Vince.
"Why?" "He can't cut hair." "Lots of Japanese barbers can't cut foreigner's hair. They admit it themselves. Some even refuse to tackle the job." "But Mr. Matsuura can't cut anybody's hair," she would explode. "There are 50,000 of the most meticulous barbers in the world in this country and you have to pick the one bumbling, cack-handed fool. Why don't you get yourself a decent barber?" "I like Mr. Matsuura!" "Why?" "Because he's my barber." "But why?" "Because he's my kind of barber!" And that was the answer. Mr. Matsuura was hardly the world's greatest barber, but then again, Vince was hardly a superstar when it came to the barbered, either.
One day, he entered the Matsuura's barber shop to see a forlorn figure sitting there waiting in pyjama bottoms and a singlet. Vince assumed that it must be another customer. He would have to wait his turn for a haircut he decided and sighed. He had just picked up his book, a blockbuster especially chosen for long waits outside doctor's surgeries or in barber shops, when he was surprised to see Mrs. Matsuura beckoning for him to sit in the barber's chair.
He turned back to the strange pyjama-clad figure to indicate that the other man had been first and recognised Mr. Matsuura. The old fellow had lost a lot of weight and was bordering on thin, in the way that only a bean bag can get thin. He couldn't speak and Vince assumed from what Mrs. Matsuura had to say, that he had had a stroke. No more talking, no more laughter.
"We bring him out here, so he can see some of his old customers," Mrs. Matsuura explained.
Vince was so despondent when he sat down in the barber's chair that he couldn't have cared less what Mrs. Matsuura did to him. She cut his hair, clipped his nails, shaved his face, ear holes, cheek bones and forehead, plucked his nose hairs, kneaded and pummelled his shoulders, took his shoes off and massaged his feet. She moisturised his face, dry-cleaned his jacket and car waxed his hair. Connie couldn't believe the Vince that came back from the barber shop, that day. He looked like a latter day James Dean. With some coaxing, he finally admitted that he had enjoyed his first real Japanese haircut and he finally discovered that his quick trim cost just as much as the works.
Vince never returned to the Matsuura's. He couldn't face the thought of the old barber the way he was. Much later, he passed the shop and saw that Mr. Matsuura was up and around and back cutting hair, but the sheer joy he had once taken in the job was gone. Vince could tell. Still, from then on, whenever Vince went into a barber shop in Japan, he demanded the works.