But how can this be? In a modern country such as Japan, shouldn’t it be a society in which one can look past another’s facial hair without judging (or firing you?). I’d like to take you on a mustache-canoe journey through the river that is the history of how facial hair functions in Japan, past and present. I’d also like to educate you on mustaches in general in Japan, just in case you end up in a heated mustache-related argument. Nobody is going to be teased about falling flattop on your facial hair on my watch.

Japanese Mustache Vocabulary

Unlike English, Japanese has only one word for each type of facial hair, excluding the eyebrows: HIGE. Lucky you! You’ve just learned how to say mustache, beard, sideburns, and whiskers in Japanese, all at once. If you found it to be more confusing than “lucky”, don’t worry, we use a different kanji for each hige: 髭 for mustache, 鬚 for cheek hair, and 髯 for the chin. Furthermore, you can also say 口髭 (kuchi-hige/mouth-hair), 頬鬚 (hoo-hige/cheek-hair), and 顎髯 (ago-hige/chin-hair), if you prefer to specify.

Just as a note, to save some word-space in this article, from here on out I’ll use “hige” to quickly refer to mustaches, beards, sideburns, (and whiskers). So, please don’t get confused whenever you see the word “hige”. Memorize the meaning right now!!!

Let’s break down the words for each HIGE style: Mustache a.k.a. kuchi-hige is facial hair grown just above the upper lip and is the most common type of hige. For this popular mustache, there are three main styles. In Japanese, the “handlebar mustache” a.k.a. the “Kaiser mustache” is カイゼル髭(kaizeru-hige), toothbrush mustache is ちょび髭 (chobi-hige), and the pencil-thin mustache is 泥鰌髭(dojou-hige).

There are other types of hige out there besides these, of course. Let’s take a look at some of the more interesting ones.

Ago-hige is the collection of facial hair grown on the chin, upper lip, lower cheeks, and neck. The most famous style of this is most likely to be the “goatee” and is translated into 山羊髯 (yagi-hige/goat hige).

This can be taken a step further, too. Nothing says “I love Japan” more than trimming the hair on your chin into the shape of Mt. Fuji. Not surprisingly, this is called 富士髯 (Fuji-hige).

Hoo-hige is facial hair grown on the sides of the face and in front of the ears. It’s not exactly the same thing as sideburns, however. In Japanese “sideburns” get separated into two different categories. (Remember, “hoo” means cheek so hoo-hige is the part of the sideburn that starts extending outward over your cheek.) The part of the sideburn that is directly beside your ear is called もみあげ(momiage). It’s difficult to distinguish exactly where momiage end and where hoo-hige begin, so some people just call them 長いもみあげ (nagai-momiage), which means “long momiage.”

Another very common hige style is the combination of the mustache and the goatee, which is called ラウンド髭 (round-hige), 囲み (kakomi), or カールおじさんの髭 (karl-ojisan-no-hige).

And finally, if you have hige that isn’t trimmed at all and just looks like messy stubble, it’s called 無精髭 (bushou-hige/laziness-hige). Additionally, the “5 o’clock shadow” is called 青髭 (ao-hige/blue-hige). As you can see, for any variation or combination of mustaches, beards, and/or sideburns, we say “hige” and use “髭.”

Japanese Mustache History

In Japan, from the medieval period to the beginning of Edo period, if you were a Samurai, you had to have hige. A Samurai without hige was made fun of. Thus, those who couldn’t grow much hige or had thin ones, such as Hideyoshi Toyotomi, used fake hige.

When the Edo shogunate entered a calm stage and became a “civilian government” called 文治政治 (bunchi-seiji), showing a fighting spirit came to be regarded as having the intention of rebelling. Since hige represents the samurai’s fighting spirit, feudal lords started shaving off their hige and left only their 髷 (mage) which is the long hair at the back of the head tied into a knot or bun. Another symbol of a samurai, the 月代 (sakayaki) which is the shaved part on the top of the head, remained during this period. This style was used until the middle of the 17th century. The government ended up banning people from having hige for the reason that hige could corrupt public morals, so all samurai had to shave off their hige, as well. They made one exception, however. People who had scars on their faces were granted permission to grow hige in order to hide their scars. Thus, Morihito Yamayoshi (a.k.a Shinpachirou Yamayoshi or Shinpachi) shaved his hige, though he doesn’t have his hige in the moe-anime game called “ChuShingura46+1”, since all Samurai characters are girls in the game.

In the second half of the 17th century, having a clean-shaven face became the standard among Japanese civilians. Meanwhile, in Hokkaido, Japan’s indigenous group called Ainu still had hige but didn’t have mage (the knot at the top of the head). Therefore, during the Edo-period, the homeland of the Ainu, 蝦夷地(Ezo-chi/Yezo), was regarded as a land of savages, in large part due to them having hige. This “hige discrimination” is considered to be one of the initial reasons that people started to harbor contempt for the Ainu.

There is also an offensive and insulting term for foreigners, 毛唐(ketou), which was created to spite foreigners with hige. 毛 means hair and 唐 means Tang Dynasty. The word 毛唐 was originally intended for Chinese people thought later it came to denote Westerners.

Speaking of Westerners, in and around the 18th century, hige became really popular in Victorian England and spread throughout Europe. That influence reached men of high status in Japan during the Meiji-era (that’s after the anti-mustache Shogunate was overthrown, 1868-1912 AD) and so they started growing their hige again. Gaishi Nagaoka, an officer at Military Staff College in Tokyo, was one of them and he grew his mustache to an astounding 70cm (27.5inch) from end to end. His mustache was called the プロペラ髭 (propeller-hige) and Nagaoka was very proud of it.

During the Taishou era (1912-1926 AD), some people still wore the toothbrush mustache or the Ronald-Coleman-like mustache called コールマン髭 (Coleman-hige). However, a new style without a mustache called MOBO (Modern Boy) became popular and the hige fever cooled down all the way until the militaristic Shouwa era (1926–1989) when the hige-boom came back (but didn’t last that long). After the wars, safety razors spread around the country and shaving hige became the respectable, and respectful, style for salarymen all through the post-war reconstruction period.

Hige In The Contemporary Japan

Nowadays, though the trendiness of hige is gradually increasing, even to the point that there is now a popular Hige Dance, there are still far more clean-shaven Japanese men than those with hige. I guess it’s because the old “Hige=Bad” mentality still lingers in many minds.

Across Japan, a general rule of employment stipulates that you must not have hige. This is particularly evident in the following industries: banking, investment, insurance, railway, airline, bus, taxi, retail, restaurant, and hotel. Companies make such rules because the firing, suspension of, demotion of a person, or reducing their salary for having hige is an infringement on personal rights. An employee must be given fair warning that having hige is against company policy.

In fact, some incidents have even gone all the way to the court system. For example, a postman named Noboru Nakamura had to hire a lawyer to fight for the right to keep his hige against Japan Post’s 2004 grooming regulation. Nakamura wasn’t the only postman who felt troubled by the regulation. Another postman named Hideki Shiba brought his case against Japan Post to court and won because the regulation was introduced after he had started working there. A taxi driver won his case that he took to court, as well. Those cases (裁判/saiban) are called 髭裁判（hige-saiban).

This means one very simple thing: it’s very possible to get fired for having facial hair. Oh, and don’t forget to lawyer up.

It all sounds far too serious for something as little (and natural) has hige, but as the saying たかが髭、されど髭 (takaga hige, saredo hige) goes, “it’s just hige, but it could be very important, as well”. And indeed it can be. As I am a female, I don’t understand how men feel about their hige. If I found a thick hige on my face, I’d remove it immediately. However, while writing this article I’ve learned about how difficult it was to have hige from a historical context. I’ve also learned how important hige can be for some men, and I’d like to learn more. I’d love to hear the passionate opinions of the “Hige-man”. I guess we all want to, so keep an eye out for the next article in which I interview a Japanese salary man with a doozie of a mustache. What made him start growing his mustache? Did he need to fight his boss in order to keep it? It’s him against society. You don’t want to miss it!

Bonus Wallpapers!

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In Japan, something similar happened a few hundred years ago. It was called ええじゃないか or “Why not?” and it’s kind of hard to explain.

Changing Times

ええじゃないか started out innocently enough: people were dancing at different celebrations (as people in Japan were known to do) for things like seasonal festivals.

But then people kept finding more and more reasons to keep on dancing until regular, everyday life was completely gone and Japanese villagers were swept up into this weird frenzy.

People danced, chanted, sang, dressed up, dressed down, and just generally went kinda crazy. ええじゃないか got more and more insane until it turned into violence and just sort of petered out.

Why did ええじゃないか happen? There are a few theories.

During the mid-1800^s when ええじゃないか took place, there was a huge cultural shift happening in Japan. The Shogunate that had ruled over Japan for the last couple hundred years was crumbling, and a new society was starting to take shape. The Meiji Restoration was coming.

With social changes as big as the Meiji Restoration, there are always people who are displaced financially, socially, or culturally. Sometimes, all of the above.

Some people think that ええじゃないか was a sort of outlet to deal with the stress of all of being displaced. The movie ええじゃないか subscribed to that theory:

Other people think that ええじゃないか happened for no real reason. I mean, why not? There weren’t any leaders nor organization to ええじゃないか, no plans, stated goals, or message. It just sort of happened, then stopped happening.

It all could have just been a sort of spontaneous social phenomenon that nobody can really explain, like the Harlem Shake.

It’s fun to imagine different theories about ええじゃないか, since we’ll never really know for sure what exactly spurred it all.

The Social Movement-Turned Roller Coaster

Nowadays, people in Japan don’t go on days-long dancing sprees unless they’re high on LSD, listening to trance. Still, ええじゃないか lives on in Japan as a roller coaster at the incredible Fuji Q Highland amusement park that bears the same name:

Does it have anything to do with the dancing mania of old Japan? Not really — any connection between the two would be a pretty big stretch. But you know what they say: ええじゃないか？

I bet a lot of you have thought “damn, my pictures just don’t look Meiji enough.” Thank goodness there’s a solution for you. I have actually known about this website for a long time now, but for some reason never realized I never shared it with anyone (it’s my own dirty secret!). I’ve been working hard on my “How to speak like a Japanese girl (or boy)” class, and needed to use this service, which is when I realized that I’d rather procrastinate by writing this blog post instead. So consider yourselves lucky duckies.

The Bakumatsu Koshashin!

This is the name of the website. It means:

Bakumatsu: End of the Feudal Era (i.e. the Meiji Period!)
Koshashin: Old Photo

I went ahead and did a search for real images from this period, and they actually look pretty similar (not to mention remind me of the website where you can digitally deface Japanese textbook images). Here’s a few to gander on. Remember, these are real photos, not the ones generated by the website.

Now wouldn’t it be great if all your photos could look like this? It’s really easy to do, even if you don’t understand the Japanese it takes to navigate the site.

1. Visit the Bakumatsu Koshashin

2. Add your picture (click to the left of the ‘browse’ button to choose your image file).

3. Click the button underneath the browse button in the middle to make the magic happen. Poof, you’re done!

Best Picture Wins

There’s so much potential to take advantage of for this service, and I know you’re all more creative than me. If you put a picture through the bakumatsu Koshashin, be sure to upload it to a service like PhotoBucket (or whatever) and share the link. I’d love to see them, and the more ridiculous the better! I’ll even post the good ones up on this blog post as updates and attribute back to you! Let me leave you with a few takeaways.

Electric Wheelchair Unicorn Mount

Now it’s on, fools. You think you got something that’s better? Like I said, I’ll post the really good ones up on this post as updates, and you can even ask me to link back somewhere. You know you want the blogger crack (Has to be a really good image though!).