Notes:
line up 列に並ぶ;
barbershop 床屋;
public bath 銭湯;
the Red and White Year-end Song Festival 紅白歌会戦;
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It’s almost the end of the year, and in Japan, everyone is cleaning. Workers are cleaning their offices. People are cleaning their houses and washing their windows. Drivers line up at gas stations for a car wash. Men are going to the barbershops to get a haircut. My wife tells me that when she was a child, she used to run to the public bath after watching the Red and White Year-end Song Festival on TV on New Year’s Eve for the last bath of the year. Cleaning is such a big part of the Japanese new year. (by Professor Douglas Jarrell)
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