According to Guinness World Records, a 108-year-old woman from Japan has been recognised as the oldest barber in the world, and she intends to continue working until she reaches at least 110.
Shitsui Hakoishi, born in 1916, chose to pursue a career in barbering at 14 when a friend’s mother invited her to become an apprentice at a Tokyo hair salon.
She can still use her own scissors and participated in a celebration event this week that was reportedly attended by her two children, an 85-year-old daughter and an 81-year-old son.
“I’m very happy. My heart is full,” she expressed during the ceremony in Nakagawa, a town located in the eastern Tochigi region.
Guinness World Records informed AFP on Friday that the category for the oldest barber is divided into male and female sections, but the previous oldest male barber, Anthony Mancinelli, who worked in New York until he was at least 107, has since passed away.
Hakoishi tied the knot in her early 20s and opened a salon with her husband, but he was conscripted during World War II and subsequently died. According to Guinness’s statement, the salon, which also served as their family residence, “was reduced to ashes during the bombing of Tokyo by the US military.”
Hakoishi and her children survived because they had evacuated to her hometown of Nakagawa.
A few years after the conflict ended, Hakoishi established a new salon in Nakagawa, where she continues to work today, and some of her longstanding clients occasionally call to schedule a haircut.
Although she resides in a care facility, she can care for herself.
She was one of the torchbearers for the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, walking approximately 200 meters, as the local broadcaster Tochigi TV reported.
