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A Room with a Japanese View
It's the wee hours of Saturday morning in a quiet all female low-rise dorm room at NDSU. Residents are either sleeping soundly or out having a good time some place off campus. But in one dorm room a social gathering is in full swing. I'm not talking about a swing dance either. As I walk down my motel-looking dorm hallway, I hear a male's voice with a sharp and harsh intonation. I pause in front of the door for a second, my curiosity piqued. There is silence for a moment and then I hear the voice again and I realize it's not English, but Japanese. I proceed down the hall, shuffling in my slippers, not wanting to be an eavesdropper. On my return I hear a loud electric razor coming from the same room. Again I pause in front of the wooden door, brightly decorated with two nametags, Yoko and Michelle, made by the creative RAs of our dorm (All names are pseudonyms). What's going on in there, I wonder. I see Yoko weekly at the International Student Association meeting, but only know that she's from Japan and is here to learn English.
I knock at the door, still hearing the razor and voices in the background. The door pops open and I'm greeted by a petite Japanese girl with dyed brown hair. It’s Yoko. She invites me in and I see the pile of different sized shoes near the door. My Hong Kong etiquette that I learned when I lived overseas with my family comes back to me and I promptly take off my shoes. To my left I see Kiyo, a tall Japanese guy with spiky hair, standing behind Watashi, who is quietly sitting down with a black garbage bag covering his upper body. There are garbage bags covering the floor around them and short pieces of black hair decorate the dark plastic.
The haircutter and haircutee don’t say much to me. Watashi just says “hi” when I come in the door and then looks down to prevent getting freshly clipped hair in his brown eyes. Yoko walks towards them and checks out the progress. Cutting hair in the dorms is something one doesn’t see often. I don’t think most guys cut their hair in the dorms like this.