A haircut
It was time. Since I left New York I had not gotten a haircut. I thought about it. But that was not doing the trick. I was starting to resemble the lead singer of a 70s funk band. I mean, more than I already normally do.
So let's see, I wander down Tianhe Bei Lu on the way to my school pondering into which Asian hair salon I shall place my fate. There was one block where I'd walked past a Korean and a Japanese place a few times. Inspecting the sign carefully and comprehending very little except an apparently low price for a basic wash & cut, I venture in armed with my prepared mental list of haircut-related words that I'd looked up diligently in my dictionary prior to attempting this little adventure.
So I walk in, and all of this takes place in Chinese of course. Yes, I'd like a haircut. Ok, purple gown/robe thing to wear. Sure, you can tie it for me. Ok, the key to the place where you are putting my backpack and aged flannel shirt so I can retrieve it later. Ah, tying it to the robe, that's interesting. Ok, now we will follow the young lady to the back area where I will lie down on the hard washing table with my head in the sink. I know some of this won't be as exotic to my ladyfriends but it is a far cry from the Sicilian barber shop in the east village where I have been going for the last year or two to get my hair cut. So anyway, this girl washes my hair more thoroughly than it has ever been washed in my life. And yes, I know how to wash my hair. But this is like 10 minutes for the first wash, then rinse. Then another 10 minutes of full scrubbing and massaging of my entire head including sharp kind of pulling motions that feel like she's trying to extract my brain through an imaginary hole in my crainum, or one that she is attempting to create. Then conditioning comes next. Then the massage begins to move off my hair and onto my neck. Then I realize I'm actually getting a full massage. This story does not have a "happy ending" for those of you are wondering. It was a rather enjoyable massage though apart from the fact that my muscles were tremendously resistant to the idea of relaxing at all. Oh, and I was happy because she told me to relax in Chinese early on and I just learned that word two days ago and understood. So quite a while later I am whisked to the barber's chair or the stylist or the hair designer or whatever they are called these days and a slightly gay man with a haircut from the 80s version of Duran Duran does some work on my hair. I mean, I'm not that complicated, it seemed fine to me. Then, they take you back to the headsink area and rinse you out all over again. Then you go back to the chair once more for additional styling and appraisal from the rest of the staff seeing as how not too many foreigners drift into this here salon apparently.
The most amazing part about that whole thing to me was that I was there for something like an hour or more, got like 4 headwashings, a massage, and a haircut and it costs me 40RMB. That would be $5 US dollars. No tip, no additional costs, nothing. To me, that is amazing. It's almost enough to make me not wait another 5 months before my next haircut.
And as a brief related cultural aside, I was buying produce the other day at a supermarket near me. The standard move for vegetables is you put the stuff in bags just like you do in the US, except they have a table at the produce department where you then bring your bags and they weigh them and print the appropriate sticker so by the time you head to the checkout, it is already priced and ready to go. So that's easy enough, but for some reason lemons are the one exception. I put 3 lemons in a bag and brought them to the weigh station and they said no. I do not know why. They are priced and paid for individually despite originating in the produce section. This is one of China's great mysteries.
So let's see, I wander down Tianhe Bei Lu on the way to my school pondering into which Asian hair salon I shall place my fate. There was one block where I'd walked past a Korean and a Japanese place a few times. Inspecting the sign carefully and comprehending very little except an apparently low price for a basic wash & cut, I venture in armed with my prepared mental list of haircut-related words that I'd looked up diligently in my dictionary prior to attempting this little adventure.
So I walk in, and all of this takes place in Chinese of course. Yes, I'd like a haircut. Ok, purple gown/robe thing to wear. Sure, you can tie it for me. Ok, the key to the place where you are putting my backpack and aged flannel shirt so I can retrieve it later. Ah, tying it to the robe, that's interesting. Ok, now we will follow the young lady to the back area where I will lie down on the hard washing table with my head in the sink. I know some of this won't be as exotic to my ladyfriends but it is a far cry from the Sicilian barber shop in the east village where I have been going for the last year or two to get my hair cut. So anyway, this girl washes my hair more thoroughly than it has ever been washed in my life. And yes, I know how to wash my hair. But this is like 10 minutes for the first wash, then rinse. Then another 10 minutes of full scrubbing and massaging of my entire head including sharp kind of pulling motions that feel like she's trying to extract my brain through an imaginary hole in my crainum, or one that she is attempting to create. Then conditioning comes next. Then the massage begins to move off my hair and onto my neck. Then I realize I'm actually getting a full massage. This story does not have a "happy ending" for those of you are wondering. It was a rather enjoyable massage though apart from the fact that my muscles were tremendously resistant to the idea of relaxing at all. Oh, and I was happy because she told me to relax in Chinese early on and I just learned that word two days ago and understood. So quite a while later I am whisked to the barber's chair or the stylist or the hair designer or whatever they are called these days and a slightly gay man with a haircut from the 80s version of Duran Duran does some work on my hair. I mean, I'm not that complicated, it seemed fine to me. Then, they take you back to the headsink area and rinse you out all over again. Then you go back to the chair once more for additional styling and appraisal from the rest of the staff seeing as how not too many foreigners drift into this here salon apparently.
The most amazing part about that whole thing to me was that I was there for something like an hour or more, got like 4 headwashings, a massage, and a haircut and it costs me 40RMB. That would be $5 US dollars. No tip, no additional costs, nothing. To me, that is amazing. It's almost enough to make me not wait another 5 months before my next haircut.
And as a brief related cultural aside, I was buying produce the other day at a supermarket near me. The standard move for vegetables is you put the stuff in bags just like you do in the US, except they have a table at the produce department where you then bring your bags and they weigh them and print the appropriate sticker so by the time you head to the checkout, it is already priced and ready to go. So that's easy enough, but for some reason lemons are the one exception. I put 3 lemons in a bag and brought them to the weigh station and they said no. I do not know why. They are priced and paid for individually despite originating in the produce section. This is one of China's great mysteries.
posted by Dan at 8:28 AM
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