I was sitting naked in a pool of hot water, when a Japanese man approached me and spoke to me in English. After asking me the usual questions [Where are you from? What do you think of Japan? Do you have a girlfriend? etc.] and after I had made it clear that I could understand Japanese, he asked [地毛ですね? jige, desu ne~?] It is your real hair, isn't it? Indeed it was my real hair, so I told him my spiel and explained all about it, and we came to a tentative agreement that he would cut one off after we had both finished in the bath. After a few more snippets of conversation, we went our separate bathing ways, but I kept an eye on him lest he slip away unnoticed before relieving me of another lock.
I need not have worried: before he left, he passed near to the bath I was in and hinted that he was maybe nearly ready to think about leaving. So I went out to the changing room and got ready for a haircut.
I noticed Mr. M. about to leave, and called to him. He came to my locker, asking [本当ですか？honto desuka?] - is it really true that you want me to cut off a dreadlock? I think he thought I'd been joking with him. He was even more surprised when I made sure he cut a whole dreadlock off. I think perhaps he thought that just one hair would suffice (at that rate, this activity would of course take rather more than a couple of months to achieve). He may have tried to persuade me not to do it, but I was determined, and he acquiesced.
After he cut the dreadlock free, Mr. M. was almost certainly expecting to keep it. I asked him if he had anything to exchange for it, but he said that since he only came down from his hotel to have a bath, he didn't have anything with him. But he took the dreadlock away with him anyway. I was not too worried though, as he had actually made the cut (unlike the lady in the previous encounter) and I went to the tatami room to write my diary.
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