Great news for all McDonald’s employees in Japan: starting today they can dye their hair!
Until recently, those who worked at McDonald’s in the Land of the Rising Sun were required to keep their hair natural, as the company prohibited them from dyeing it.
The reason? As Dissapore.com points out, “it was simply a rule that we should all be equal, a word that for centuries was the basis of human society in Japan.”
Japan is, in fact, another cultural world, where rules and customs apply in all areas, which cannot be found in any other corner of the planet.
So McDonald’s had to adapt to these rules and consequently chose an exclusive menu such as chicken burgers with teriyaki sauce, typical of Japan, but also local desserts such as Tsukimi Pie and many other commercial options.
But in Japan, as in the rest of the world, changing hair color is very fashionable, because in fact there are no Japanese people with blond hair, or at least it is estimated that they are only 1% of the population. McDonald’s has also had to adapt to this.
The American fast food chain dropped its beard ban a few years ago.
Anyway, just for the record, in the 90s, with the birth of the movement called Chapatsu, a kind of rebellious teenagers, thousands of young Japanese people started to have strange hairstyles, with different colors, thus breaking the basic rules of society.
Until a few years ago, this “style” of Chapatsu was not recognized at an institutional level, but as of 2022, the ban on hair dyeing has been lifted in high schools in Tokyo and the surrounding area. This ban has also been contributed to by the increase in mixed-race students, who obviously have different physical characteristics from typical Japanese.