New York's barbershop

I had been to barbershops in New York. I usually went to cheaper barbershops whose price of cutting hair was about only 14 dollars, so I didn’t expect good services and quality. However, I couldn’t help but have feeling that their services were terrible.

First of all, they told me to sit on a chair signed “Children”, so I had to bear the narrow space. Second, their job was terribly rough. A lot of cut hair dropped into my shirt. They didn’t care about them at all. They covered over my clothes and my neck with something, but large quantities of cut hair mercilessly dropped into my clothes – I didn’t know why it is. I felt uncomfortable it, so I immediately went back my room after barber and washed my body and my clothes for clearing cut hair.

On the other hand, I sometimes go to cheap barbershops in Japan, and I have never had such experiences. Japanese barbers are very kind and give me a good service. Even when cut hair falls on my face while cutting my hair, they try to clear them as soon as possible.

I have a theory about the difference between Japanese culture and New York’s culture. At first, I had thought that these cases are appearance of this difference. On my theory, New Yorkers think their job is a thing outside themselves, so they think that their job is other thing from their own personality. They think that they sell their own techniques or services (for example, cutting hair) as products. However, Japanese people think their job is a part of themselves, so they think that their job is directly rerated to their personality. Therefore, I think that Japanese people try to appear their job with kindness or politeness.

I think that each one has its own advantages. On the former, we can judge the shop by just their own technique, but on the latter, we have difficulty to judge the shop, because we have difficulty to judge the relationship or personality. On the other hand, we have much more comfort on the latter in many cases.

However, in my cases of barbershops in New York, their services were too terrible to judge their own technique. I have to say that my theory is not useful in this case.