It’s Hard Out Here Being a “Barber”

Apparently barber shops in Korea are having a hard time making ends meet:

According to the status report on the Public Sanitary Business released by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the number of beauty salons and barbershops are drastically decreasing. Last year alone, the number of barber shops operating was 26,904, and the number of beauty salons was 81,663. The number of barbershops and beauty salons which shut down last year has reached 5,300 and 2,100 respectively since 2000.

There are a series of barbershop closures because middle aged men have started to haircuts at beauty salons, and barbershops have been affected by depression. The number of barbershops is less than that of beauty salons while the sharp reduction in barbershops is much larger.

Here is the reasons why:

“Massage parlors and resting-tels for men are attracting customers with neon signs,” an official of the association said and argued, “For this reason, the image of neon signs is damaged. So many customers are reluctant to visit barbershops which are a good model.”

“Neon signs are the international symbols which represent barbershops. In this regard, the government should impose legal controls on the reckless use of neon signs,” he said.

Neon signs are the international symbol which represents barbershops? I think this man is referring to a barber pole because often in Korea barber poles are used to represent a business that offers “extra” services to go along with the haircut.

In America we have the song, It is Hard Out Here Being a Pimp, in Korea I guess they are singing, It is Hard Out Here Being a “Barber”.