No matter how unconcerned you may be with your appearance, there comes a time in every traveler's life when the need to attend to personal maintenance asserts itself. It was hair-cut time again.
I have, of course, had my hair cut a few times on this trip and it has always been a relatively pleasant experience, combined as it variously has been with head massage, shoulder massage, shave, manicure etc. You certainly get more hair-cut for your money on the road than you do in the UK. No great surprise there I guess.
Obtaining said service in India or the middle east is a relative doddle. They are used to European tourists and in general have a good smattering of English. They also have similar styles, so there are no great surprises and you generally get what you are looking for. China is a very different story, however, and as I was to discover negotiating the various pit-falls of hair maintenance in this region is nothing short of a mine-field.
For a start, there are a bewildering number of hair salons in China. Every street houses 10's of them; enough, it would seem, to cut ther nation's collective hair twice a day continuously even given that China plays host to a quarter of the worlds population. Selecting an appropriate establishment is the first hurdle. This is made doubly difficult because, unlike the good old barbers back home, hair salons in China often double as brothels which goes a long way to explaining their frequency (apparently over 90% of Chinese business men use prostitutes on a regular basis). It is not unusual to see girls on display in the windows of said establishments, and this gives you a fair indication that a quick trim is not all that is on offer. Something for the weekend sir? However, whilst ''cut and blow-job'' one-stop shopping may sound appealing, the patrons in these establishments charge way more for the value-added services than they do for the hair-cut and so are not particularly interested in the latter. The chances are that if all you actually want is a hair-cut you are going to get pretty shabby service in these places.
A good (although not fool-proof) indication of a legitimate hair salon is that there are guys in there cutting hair. And so, with a certain degree of care, we (Steve and I) selected what looked like the Chinese equivalent of Toni and Guy, said a quick prayer to the god of good-hair-days and stepped, not for the first time, resolutely into uncharted territory..
It started well. Although the patrons spoke not a single word of English, we managed, as we have on so many occasions, to communicate our desires using sign language and we were duly whisked off for the obligatory hair-wash-with-integral-head-massage. So it was, suitably relaxed, we were wheeled out to sit in front of a mirror and await the main performance.
I should have realised that things were about to go pear shaped when I glanced in the mirror to see what closely resembled the Chinese tooth fairy floating towards me, scissors in hand, tin-foil sticking out of designer hair, and a look of spaced-out disconnection on his face that can only really be achieved by the artistically gay. I had, it seemed, entered the domain of Vidal Sassoon and been lucky enough to have secured the services of the head stylist. Overriding my immediate instinct to run screaming from the shop and not stop until I found a local yak shearer, I strapped myself in and attempted to explain, again in sign-language, that I wanted a short back and sides with half an inch off the top. He seemed to understand, and set to work with a flair and an apparent skill matched only by Eduard Scissor Hands. No turning back now.
So it was that over the next 45 minutes I watched with mounting horror as my hair was clipped, trimmed, thinned, scrunched and twisted into something that would not have looked out of place as a centre piece on a wedding cake. Then, suddenly and quite unexpectedly my limp-wristed abuser performed a flamboyant flourish that I took to mean he believed he had finished. Guess again Viv!
Whilst looking agog at the meringue on my head, I rapidly contemplated how I was now going to explain, through the medium of sign, that unlike David Beckham I did not have half an hour to spend designing my hair every morning and that, anyway, spending hours at a time on an open sided truck would likely ruin any artistic creation not stuck firmly down with super-glue. It wasn't going to happen. Instead I grabbed the brush off the guy, brushed my hair straight back - more or less simulating the effect the truck has - and the result spoke for itself. Hair of various lengths sticking out in all directions creating an effect not dissimilar to an exploding hedgehog. He wasn't impressed. This state of affairs degenerated further as I motioned with a chopping action what I wanted him to do. You would think from the expression on the guy's face that I had just asked him to spray-paint The Monalisa. He acquiesced, however, and proceeded to provide me with something approximating to a normal hair-cut crossed with a mohican.
And so it was that I came out of the hair-salon mildly traumatised and looking like the newest recruit to the Hitler Youth. The moral of the story: don't get your hair cut in China by anyone with tin foil in their hair!
I have, of course, had my hair cut a few times on this trip and it has always been a relatively pleasant experience, combined as it variously has been with head massage, shoulder massage, shave, manicure etc. You certainly get more hair-cut for your money on the road than you do in the UK. No great surprise there I guess.
Obtaining said service in India or the middle east is a relative doddle. They are used to European tourists and in general have a good smattering of English. They also have similar styles, so there are no great surprises and you generally get what you are looking for. China is a very different story, however, and as I was to discover negotiating the various pit-falls of hair maintenance in this region is nothing short of a mine-field.
For a start, there are a bewildering number of hair salons in China. Every street houses 10's of them; enough, it would seem, to cut ther nation's collective hair twice a day continuously even given that China plays host to a quarter of the worlds population. Selecting an appropriate establishment is the first hurdle. This is made doubly difficult because, unlike the good old barbers back home, hair salons in China often double as brothels which goes a long way to explaining their frequency (apparently over 90% of Chinese business men use prostitutes on a regular basis). It is not unusual to see girls on display in the windows of said establishments, and this gives you a fair indication that a quick trim is not all that is on offer. Something for the weekend sir? However, whilst ''cut and blow-job'' one-stop shopping may sound appealing, the patrons in these establishments charge way more for the value-added services than they do for the hair-cut and so are not particularly interested in the latter. The chances are that if all you actually want is a hair-cut you are going to get pretty shabby service in these places.
A good (although not fool-proof) indication of a legitimate hair salon is that there are guys in there cutting hair. And so, with a certain degree of care, we (Steve and I) selected what looked like the Chinese equivalent of Toni and Guy, said a quick prayer to the god of good-hair-days and stepped, not for the first time, resolutely into uncharted territory..
It started well. Although the patrons spoke not a single word of English, we managed, as we have on so many occasions, to communicate our desires using sign language and we were duly whisked off for the obligatory hair-wash-with-integral-head-massage. So it was, suitably relaxed, we were wheeled out to sit in front of a mirror and await the main performance.
I should have realised that things were about to go pear shaped when I glanced in the mirror to see what closely resembled the Chinese tooth fairy floating towards me, scissors in hand, tin-foil sticking out of designer hair, and a look of spaced-out disconnection on his face that can only really be achieved by the artistically gay. I had, it seemed, entered the domain of Vidal Sassoon and been lucky enough to have secured the services of the head stylist. Overriding my immediate instinct to run screaming from the shop and not stop until I found a local yak shearer, I strapped myself in and attempted to explain, again in sign-language, that I wanted a short back and sides with half an inch off the top. He seemed to understand, and set to work with a flair and an apparent skill matched only by Eduard Scissor Hands. No turning back now.
So it was that over the next 45 minutes I watched with mounting horror as my hair was clipped, trimmed, thinned, scrunched and twisted into something that would not have looked out of place as a centre piece on a wedding cake. Then, suddenly and quite unexpectedly my limp-wristed abuser performed a flamboyant flourish that I took to mean he believed he had finished. Guess again Viv!
Whilst looking agog at the meringue on my head, I rapidly contemplated how I was now going to explain, through the medium of sign, that unlike David Beckham I did not have half an hour to spend designing my hair every morning and that, anyway, spending hours at a time on an open sided truck would likely ruin any artistic creation not stuck firmly down with super-glue. It wasn't going to happen. Instead I grabbed the brush off the guy, brushed my hair straight back - more or less simulating the effect the truck has - and the result spoke for itself. Hair of various lengths sticking out in all directions creating an effect not dissimilar to an exploding hedgehog. He wasn't impressed. This state of affairs degenerated further as I motioned with a chopping action what I wanted him to do. You would think from the expression on the guy's face that I had just asked him to spray-paint The Monalisa. He acquiesced, however, and proceeded to provide me with something approximating to a normal hair-cut crossed with a mohican.
And so it was that I came out of the hair-salon mildly traumatised and looking like the newest recruit to the Hitler Youth. The moral of the story: don't get your hair cut in China by anyone with tin foil in their hair!
posted by Al at 10:17 pm
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