The other week I went out for a haircut since I was feeling kind of shaggy. Just to provide some kind of reference, I’m a barbershop guy (and I don’t mean the singing guys with the funny hats). I don’t want a fru-fru haircut, I don’t need someone to “style” my hair (there isn’t enough of it) and I don’t like people that primp, fluff and fuss when cutting my hair. I want the guy that’s been cutting hair for 40+ years and can use shears. I like it when I can sit down in the barber chair and be done in less than 10 minutes (and now you can insert your own smart comment about “now I understand why you look the way you do…” here). That’s my idea of a haircut.
It’s different here in China, especially since a “haircut” can mean something other than something with scissors and a comb. I won’t get into that but suffice it to say that I didn’t need that kind of “hands on” haircut. So after speaking with many others here, I finally decided where I was going and headed to the barbershop after work. I was nervous since I had no idea what to expect but along the way I decided to do what the locals do and try to gain the experience. I show up to the shop, which appears to be a part of someone’s apartment and indicate I need to get my haircut. She tells me to sit down and then asks if I want a shampoo. Oh boy….here we go. I didn’t want a shampoo but it’s part of the experience and so I say okay. She brings out a list of different shampoos and wants me to pick a shampoo to use. Like I know…look at me lady; do I look like a guy that is picky about the shampoo I use? So I just point and pray, I mean she probably had one bottle that she used for everything anyhow and just charged whatever the person was willing to pay. So she starts putting in the shampoo on my dry hair. Yep, that’s right, I’m sitting in the chair with shampoo on my head and she gets a small squeeze bottle and starts adding the water and massaging in the shampoo (I am upright, just to clarify, not over a sink, not near a sink just sitting in the chair.). So I’m getting a scalp massage while she is mixing in the shampoo, I mean she is working it in very well, just enough water to create the suds but not enough to run down my head on to my clothes. I think she worked in the shampoo for about 5 – 7 minutes, it really wasn’t all that bad but it was just weird. Then she takes me over to the sink to rinse my head and get the shampoo out, just like any salon (shudder) would do. Once it’s rinsed out, she wraps my head in a towel (this was more funny to me since I don’t ever recall wrapping a towel around my head holding my wet hair….I don’t have the hair for it. I felt like Billy from Team America) and takes me back to the barber chair.
She hits a button on the chair and it reclines (oh-oh). While my hair is drying (in the towel), she starts massaging my arms. Now this was just getting more weird for me but I’m trying to take in the experience. She’s rubbing my arms, beating my arms (with this really odd sounding popping noises) and then she starts to crack my fingers all as part of the massage. When she gets the fingers done and my arm is feeling good, she takes my hand and starts a circle motion like she’s getting a towel ready to crack on someone’s backside. So, I’m relaxed thinking, “well this isn’t all bad” and that’s when she jerks on my arm like she’s trying to pop my shoulder or something. Where did that come from?!?!? She jerked on it twice and then moved over to the other side to do the other arm. Are you kidding me? You do all this work to relax the muscles, just to try to rip my arm off??? I mean the chair moved when she pulled so it wasn’t just a little jerk (perhaps she thought I was a little jerk and so she let me have it). I was prepared for it when she did the right arm but it was still odd. I think if I ever had suffered from a shoulder issue, this would’ve been a check to determine if I was truly healed.
So after the arms were complete, it’s time to sit up and remove the towel from my head. Good, I was feeling a little stupid (or perhaps this was a fiendish plot to make me look dumb, hmmmm…nah, it doesn’t take that much effort). So she starts with the neck and shoulder massage. Okay, now that’s more like it. I think that this isn’t so bad (ooohh, I just jinxed it!). Next thing I know she’s taking her thumbs and driving them straight down in the area between the bottom of the neck and the shoulder. I mean just pushing down like she’s trying to see if she can touch my kidneys with her thumbs (I could swear I heard an evil laugh). She really leans on it and I’m in agony. I mean, my temples started to throb with this medieval torture method. Water-boarding….mere child’s play. I had no idea what she was doing but I’m a man. Take the pain! Take the pain! I’m dying wondering what my tombstone would read….Here lies Scott Dudley, A Man’s Man died in massage mishap, perhaps even including the headline “20th Victim of the Notorious Barber Assassin” (Using her training as a Ninja, she lured men using the clever disguise of a simple barber only to utilize the arm jerk to stun her victims. Once subdued, she would finish them off using the deadly “thumbs of death” technique first perfected during the time of Genghis Khan…..). She did this three times, each time holding it perhaps 5-10 seconds but it felt like a lot more than that. I was relieved when she moved on from that and actually started to do the haircut.
She takes my glasses and then says “short hair”. Oh crap! What does that mean? So I say, “Yes. Short hair (gulp).” Now remember, she took my glasses. She then proceeds to run her hand through my hair and sticks it up and says “Good enough?”, indicating that the amount she will be cutting. Come on! I can’t see a darned thing so I squint (I was spotting all those raccoons on the side of the road [Seinfeld reference]) and try to look but darnit, I have no idea. I say “okay” and start a little prayer that I have hair remaining after this. She starts cutting with the clippers…Wo-Hoo, clippers. Then her battery dies on the clippers and she replaces the battery and it starts me thinking a little bit. She continues to cut with a comb and the clippers when all of a sudden, she changes combs. Now it’s all over for me, I wonder….where is that blue jar full of combs? I don’t recall seeing any kind of cleaning stuff around that would kill any potential “critters” from the combs or scissors. So I’m squinting and thinking; now isn’t that a fine how do you do? There’s nothing I can see to indicate that the instruments are sterile (much less the room). Rats!!! Once again, you can’t be a germ-a-phobe here or you’ll never step outside. So I try not to think about it but as soon as I got back to the apartment (and after I told Tammy the story), I washed my hair again just to try and remove any critters. For the next couple of days, any time my head would itch I would wonder who was moving in upstairs.
So you are probably dying to know, what are you going to do for your next haircut? If you aren’t wondering, just play along it’ll be alright. Say it with me “Scott, what are you going to do for your next haircut?”. The answer isn’t clear (sounds like the Magic 8 Ball doesn’t it) right now. I think I’ll skip by the washing of the hair, it’ll reduce the time to get the haircut and if I can I’ll see if I can avoid the massage but you never know. In case you are wondering, it took about 30 minutes for the haircut and cost 50 RMB (less than $8.00), the shampoo was 20 RMB so it could’ve been 30 RMB for all that. I’m not sure if this is expensive by Chinese standards because if she were to cut hair and everyone got the 30 RMB cut, you would think that she could make up to 300 RMB per day for 10 haircuts which would be a pretty good living by local standards. The Barber of Suz-hou, Figaro, Figaro.
It’s different here in China, especially since a “haircut” can mean something other than something with scissors and a comb. I won’t get into that but suffice it to say that I didn’t need that kind of “hands on” haircut. So after speaking with many others here, I finally decided where I was going and headed to the barbershop after work. I was nervous since I had no idea what to expect but along the way I decided to do what the locals do and try to gain the experience. I show up to the shop, which appears to be a part of someone’s apartment and indicate I need to get my haircut. She tells me to sit down and then asks if I want a shampoo. Oh boy….here we go. I didn’t want a shampoo but it’s part of the experience and so I say okay. She brings out a list of different shampoos and wants me to pick a shampoo to use. Like I know…look at me lady; do I look like a guy that is picky about the shampoo I use? So I just point and pray, I mean she probably had one bottle that she used for everything anyhow and just charged whatever the person was willing to pay. So she starts putting in the shampoo on my dry hair. Yep, that’s right, I’m sitting in the chair with shampoo on my head and she gets a small squeeze bottle and starts adding the water and massaging in the shampoo (I am upright, just to clarify, not over a sink, not near a sink just sitting in the chair.). So I’m getting a scalp massage while she is mixing in the shampoo, I mean she is working it in very well, just enough water to create the suds but not enough to run down my head on to my clothes. I think she worked in the shampoo for about 5 – 7 minutes, it really wasn’t all that bad but it was just weird. Then she takes me over to the sink to rinse my head and get the shampoo out, just like any salon (shudder) would do. Once it’s rinsed out, she wraps my head in a towel (this was more funny to me since I don’t ever recall wrapping a towel around my head holding my wet hair….I don’t have the hair for it. I felt like Billy from Team America) and takes me back to the barber chair.
She hits a button on the chair and it reclines (oh-oh). While my hair is drying (in the towel), she starts massaging my arms. Now this was just getting more weird for me but I’m trying to take in the experience. She’s rubbing my arms, beating my arms (with this really odd sounding popping noises) and then she starts to crack my fingers all as part of the massage. When she gets the fingers done and my arm is feeling good, she takes my hand and starts a circle motion like she’s getting a towel ready to crack on someone’s backside. So, I’m relaxed thinking, “well this isn’t all bad” and that’s when she jerks on my arm like she’s trying to pop my shoulder or something. Where did that come from?!?!? She jerked on it twice and then moved over to the other side to do the other arm. Are you kidding me? You do all this work to relax the muscles, just to try to rip my arm off??? I mean the chair moved when she pulled so it wasn’t just a little jerk (perhaps she thought I was a little jerk and so she let me have it). I was prepared for it when she did the right arm but it was still odd. I think if I ever had suffered from a shoulder issue, this would’ve been a check to determine if I was truly healed.
So after the arms were complete, it’s time to sit up and remove the towel from my head. Good, I was feeling a little stupid (or perhaps this was a fiendish plot to make me look dumb, hmmmm…nah, it doesn’t take that much effort). So she starts with the neck and shoulder massage. Okay, now that’s more like it. I think that this isn’t so bad (ooohh, I just jinxed it!). Next thing I know she’s taking her thumbs and driving them straight down in the area between the bottom of the neck and the shoulder. I mean just pushing down like she’s trying to see if she can touch my kidneys with her thumbs (I could swear I heard an evil laugh). She really leans on it and I’m in agony. I mean, my temples started to throb with this medieval torture method. Water-boarding….mere child’s play. I had no idea what she was doing but I’m a man. Take the pain! Take the pain! I’m dying wondering what my tombstone would read….Here lies Scott Dudley, A Man’s Man died in massage mishap, perhaps even including the headline “20th Victim of the Notorious Barber Assassin” (Using her training as a Ninja, she lured men using the clever disguise of a simple barber only to utilize the arm jerk to stun her victims. Once subdued, she would finish them off using the deadly “thumbs of death” technique first perfected during the time of Genghis Khan…..). She did this three times, each time holding it perhaps 5-10 seconds but it felt like a lot more than that. I was relieved when she moved on from that and actually started to do the haircut.
She takes my glasses and then says “short hair”. Oh crap! What does that mean? So I say, “Yes. Short hair (gulp).” Now remember, she took my glasses. She then proceeds to run her hand through my hair and sticks it up and says “Good enough?”, indicating that the amount she will be cutting. Come on! I can’t see a darned thing so I squint (I was spotting all those raccoons on the side of the road [Seinfeld reference]) and try to look but darnit, I have no idea. I say “okay” and start a little prayer that I have hair remaining after this. She starts cutting with the clippers…Wo-Hoo, clippers. Then her battery dies on the clippers and she replaces the battery and it starts me thinking a little bit. She continues to cut with a comb and the clippers when all of a sudden, she changes combs. Now it’s all over for me, I wonder….where is that blue jar full of combs? I don’t recall seeing any kind of cleaning stuff around that would kill any potential “critters” from the combs or scissors. So I’m squinting and thinking; now isn’t that a fine how do you do? There’s nothing I can see to indicate that the instruments are sterile (much less the room). Rats!!! Once again, you can’t be a germ-a-phobe here or you’ll never step outside. So I try not to think about it but as soon as I got back to the apartment (and after I told Tammy the story), I washed my hair again just to try and remove any critters. For the next couple of days, any time my head would itch I would wonder who was moving in upstairs.
So you are probably dying to know, what are you going to do for your next haircut? If you aren’t wondering, just play along it’ll be alright. Say it with me “Scott, what are you going to do for your next haircut?”. The answer isn’t clear (sounds like the Magic 8 Ball doesn’t it) right now. I think I’ll skip by the washing of the hair, it’ll reduce the time to get the haircut and if I can I’ll see if I can avoid the massage but you never know. In case you are wondering, it took about 30 minutes for the haircut and cost 50 RMB (less than $8.00), the shampoo was 20 RMB so it could’ve been 30 RMB for all that. I’m not sure if this is expensive by Chinese standards because if she were to cut hair and everyone got the 30 RMB cut, you would think that she could make up to 300 RMB per day for 10 haircuts which would be a pretty good living by local standards. The Barber of Suz-hou, Figaro, Figaro.
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1 comment:
I was sure you were going in the direction of "What size bowl would fit my head?"
No pictures?
Jim R
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