Barbershop posters about politics

Barbershop is often supposed to be a place to talk about politics in irresponsible manner. Japanese call such argument Tokoya-no-seidan (床屋の政談); tokoya means "barbershop", and seidan means "argument about politics". Thus, tokoya-no-seidan means "barbershop argument about politics".

I don't know whether it has anything to do with the fact that barbershops are supposed to be such places, but I came across a barbershop that has posters of the LDP-leader Aso and the DPJ-leader Hatoyama on the sliding door of the shop.


They are apparently related to the posters of LDP and DPJ shown below. These posters are often seen on the street in Japan nawadays.


They are, however, significantly different from each other in the slogans written on them. The DPJ poster that features Hatoyama has a slogan saying "Seiken Koutai (政権交代)", which means "change the government". The similar poster on the door of the barbershop has a slogan "haegiwa koutai (生際後退)", which means "receding hairline". In Japanese, both change (交代) and recede (後退) are pronounced as "koutai", thus the slogan on the barbershop poster is a pun of the DPJ slogan.

The LDP poster that features Aso has a slogan saying "Mazu wa keiki da (まずは景気だ)", which means "The primary issue is the situation of economy". The similar poster on the door of the barbershop has a slogan "Mazu wa ke-e kiru" (まずは毛きる)", which means "The primary issue is cutting the hair".