Your body is one of the most important things you own. It has much influence of how one looks, and how one feels. The importance of your body is shown in many well-known sayings, such as:
- "There's no place like body"
- "Body sweet body"
- "Your body is where your heart is"
I showed up, and the reception staff greeted me with vaguely disguised looks of surprise. My name was quickly found, as it is one of 4 out of thousands with a name not in kanji. I was quickly handed a cup. That's nice, I thought, he's offering me a drink. It was a very hot day, even at 9:30AM. But no, he decided I couldn't understand Japanese despite our earlier conversation, and mimed that this was in fact, a urine sample cup. (Hint for charade enthusiasts: this basically consists of pointing at one's genitals as a pre-pubescent boy would do.)
The whole morning was spent in line, progressing from one station to another. At each station, the nurse would suddenly notice me looming over them, and they would hurredly, but professionally do their task. They tested my piss, took my blood, weighed me, measured me, made sure I had a pulse, took a few chest x-rays and made sure I could hear. With the Japanese insistence on using last names, and me having a complicated last name, each time, they would refer to me as 'Ban-san'.
They could call me whatever they wanted. Usually in Tonami it is difficult to spot a pretty woman. Don't judge me, but everyone prefers to look at a pretty face. Nursing in Japan is almost a glamour job for girls. If I were a betting man, I would bet that in Japan, Nurses as a whole would win in a beauty contest vs. Stewardesses. It'd be a close race, and one we would all like to see, but I would definitely back nursing.
The last stage involved sitting down in a room, moving ever so slowly towards two tents at the front. Inside, I assumed, was a nurse who gives you the rubber glove treatment. I was told the night before that at some health checkups, they check for prostate cancer and stuff. It was an excruciating wait. Finally it got to my turn, and inside- to my horror- was a murse! I had chosen the wrong tent! I don't know if he was as nervous as I was, and was unable to bring himself to tell me to drop my pants, but all he did was check that I still had a pulse, and check for something in my calves. Maybe calf-cancer is a big thing in Japan. It was nothing to warrant waiting 30 minutes for, or to go behind a special little private tent. (how dare a public servant show his calves in public!)
Feeling much healthier, I drove around a while, before coming back to my rightful place at my desk at school.
While not technically part of the 'body', the head is also an important part of our health and well-being. Without it, many everyday tasks would be much more difficult. One aspect, in particular, I had sorely neglected for the entire duration of my stay so far.
I was known to have said "My mullet now has some pizzazz" and "I'm starting to feel ridiculous". This was over 3 months ago.
I needed a haircut.
Ever since I was a small child, I have had a healthy fear of hairdressers, and anybody with scissors intending to cut my hair. My mother tells the story that when I was very young, she had to distract me while she discreetly cut my hair. Growing up, my hair was a part of my identity, never out of place, calm in the face of adversity. People thought I was a prettyboy because of my hair, but the truth is, it was the other way around. The point is, I have always been afraid of haircuts, and this developed into a phobia of haircuts.
- Spiders
- Telephone calls
- Haircuts
But the time had come. Like the retiring sumo, I had to retire my current hairstyle. I mustered up all my courage, and drove to a hairdressers. It took me 10 minutes of sitting in the car, pumping myself up, before I could exit the car and enter the hairdressers. Man I hate those places. The doors may as wel have been locked once I got inside; hairdressers have this vampire-like hold over me. I could never leave. The reception lady made me fill in an identity card. I guess that means I am on the permanent records now.
I had to wait for over an hour, next to a guy who smoked as if the cigarettes were free. In fact, they were. Japan has great service, and beside the complimentary magazines were complimentary cigarettes and complimentary lighters. I was on edge the whole time, expecting at any minute to be called to the chair.
Finally, a girl called me over. She was charged with washing my hair, presumably to clean out all the cigarette smoke. I never like other people washing my hair. It's a task I can, and do regularly, and I have my own system. And it's so awkward trying to wash someone elses hair; I know, I used to wash my dog. It just doesn't lather the same, and trying to keep the soap and water out of eyes and ears of someone else is nearly impossible. Then- I was not expecting this- she started massaging my scalp. Well, I assume it was a massage, but I didn't feel any more relaxed. In fact, it was more like she was checking for head cancer. She was much more thorough than the the murse.
Only then, was I led to the chair. I wasn't given a blindfold.
After 15 minutes of eternity, a meek girl edged her way behind me. The executioner. How could I be afraid of her? That's when I saw her toolbelt of scissors. She gave me a book of haricuts to chose from, and I chose the least flambouyantly-homosexual-looking one. Mind you, it would still get my ass kicked in New Zealand, but that's how Japanese hairstyles are. Next to me, a guy was getting his eyebrows shaped.
After I chose the haircut, she closed the book and proceeded to ignore it completely. She began lopping off my year's work. Threads of gold that make me so special in this country. During our conversation, I managed to ask her if this was her first time cutting foreign blonde hair. She said no. That was some relief. "One time when I started cutting hair I cut an English woman's hair". That brough no relief. You have to understand that, my hair is so different to Japanese hair. Not just the way it looks, but the way it feels, and reacts to scissors and hair product. For a haircutophobic, this only added more stress.
We went silent for a while. We had run out of good small-talk. But in our silence, I noticed that she was no longer afraid or shy. She was probably a less-popular girl at school, surely shy, but someone who loves to cut hair. I thought to myself, "This is what makes her happy". Me coming on this day gave her a chance to do something she never thought she'd have the opportunity to do. She was now taking big confident stabs at my hair now, and I'm sure that if the banal hairdresser chatter quieted down, she would have been humming to herself. I was her masterpiece.
She took me over to get my hair washed again, and started plying my hair with wax. She kept saying "ルーベンかっこい！" (Ruben you're so cool), but I'm unsure if she was saying this to me or to herself. Then she showed me in the mirror. My blood went cold, and my face went flush red. To cut the story short, I know a guy who is a complete asshole and looks the part. In the mirror, I didn't see myself, but I saw this guy. I was this guy. It was awful.
I had to leave, right away. I thanked her. I paid 4000yen, and sped home to wear a hat.
It turns out, the haircut isnt so bad. The wax was what made it awful. Infact, I'm overhearing a lot of conversations saying they approve of the change. Even so, I think that looking after your body once a year is fine.
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