My haircut with the world's oldest barber — still sharp at 108
In all ways but one, a haircut by Shitsui Hakoishi is a reassuringly familiar experience. Her small salon has the usual white gowns and towels, the chrome and leather chair and the sterilising cabinet.
The barber snips and sculpts deftly, and even has a nice line in ego-massaging banter. 'You must have charmed the ladies,' she observes, with keen insight, 'before you went grey.' One thing sets this apart from every other haircut I have ever had: Hakoishi is 108 years old.
Born in 1916 at the height of the First World War, she is still taming sideburns and reassuring men about their bald patches after almost a century on the job. The scissors she uses, ground down by decades of sharpening, are the pair
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
8 hours ago
- BBC News
BBC Learning English - Learning English from the News / North Korean secrets revealed by phone
() ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ The story The BBC has gained access to a North Korean phone which has been smuggled out of the country. The phone doesn't have access to the internet and is designed to make sure its users follow the rules in North Korea, which is closely controlled by its leader Kim Jong-un. The phone creates a screenshot every five minutes, which is used by the country's authorities to watch the user. The phone also has an autocorrect function which changes terms used in South Korea to expressions favoued by the North Korean regime. News headlines Smartphone smuggled out of North Korea shows chilling details implemented by Kim Jong-un's regime LADbible From 'oppa' to comrade: North Korea's phones auto-correct to fit party line India Today This smartphone smuggled out of North Korea is absolutely wild Futurism Key words and phrases chilling frightening I read a chilling story about a ghost and now I can't sleep. party line the official opinion of an organisation, usually political The mayor didn't say anything new in her speech. Just the usual party line. wild strange or unexpected This TV show is wild. I have no idea what's going to happen next. Next Learn more English vocabulary from the news with our News Review archive. Try our podcast The English We Speak to learn more idiomatic language.
Reuters
11 hours ago
- Reuters
Earthquake of magnitude 5.7 strikes Seram, Indonesia, GFZ says
June 4 (Reuters) - A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck Seram, Indonesia on Wednesday, the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ) said. The quake was at a depth of 10 km (6.21 miles), GFZ said.
The Independent
12 hours ago
- The Independent
The form of Christianity that fewer than 100 people still follow
Hidden Christians in Nagasaki, Japan, are a community that secretly practised Christianity during periods of persecution, and they are now on the verge of dying out. After emerging from isolation in 1865, some Hidden Christians converted to mainstream Catholicism, while others continued their unique practices. The Hidden Christians' rituals and traditions have remained unchanged since the 16th century, with group leaders called Oji presiding over ceremonies and different communities worshipping different icons. The decline in population, modernisation, and lack of professional religious leaders have made it difficult to maintain the tight networks that sustained Hidden Christianity. Efforts are being made to preserve the history and artefacts of Hidden Christians through documentation and archiving, but there is a growing certainty that this unique version of Christianity will disappear with the current generation.
