Coiffure

I went to pick up my shirts at the local laundry where they hand iron everything and fold them if you like. Five shirts, lightly starched, hand ironed and folded for 5 yuan each (7.5 yuan = $1).  I pay almost that per shirt in the States — at a Chinese or Korean-run laundry!

 On my way back I passed a barber shop and thought I might as well try a haircut.  I thiought it might have been a place for women only, but they gestured and I gestured and after mutual gesturing, we figured they’d do it.   

I like getting my hair cut by a female anyway.

 Now you’ve got to pay attention with Chinese barber shops.  If no one is inside getting their hair cut, but there are young women standing about all hussied up and an older women watching the street, it’s a place of business for more than haircuts and provides happy endings on a back room massage table (so I am told and have read).  They have barber chairs of a sort to keep up the facade, but the real action ain’t with clippers. 

The one I picked had people actually getting their hair cut, no sign of a back room and no hussies, so I was safe from that perspective. I pointed, they pointed and sat me down in a pretty typical barber chair and went to work with scissors and a comb, shortening everything and doing a nice job.  Then I motioned to have the back of my neck shaved for that nice all-American clean-cut look. 

The woman took out a new double edged razor blade, physically broke it in two and fit one half in a small holder and proceeded, after applying some lotion that did not resemble shaving cream on the back of my neck.  Whatever the process, I got a nice clean neck — something the shops in VA won’t due because of some State regulation and having customers bleeding all over them.   Not China. After that, the woman gestured to a put-your-head-back ceramic basin — kind of built in against a wall with a chair in front so you could comfortably lean back.  I figure I’m in for a penny, in for a dime so I move and get my old head shampooed about six times. 

Then I get a Chiquitta towel and moved back to the first chair for the next phase.   In this phase, I get my ears cleaned — Kleenex and Cue-tips and very, very gentle and soothing………….a really nice feeling. But, no, she’s not done……………………..she points to my beard, clearly not satisfied with the trimming job I’ve been doing — I go with the flow, but call a halt when she gets electric clippers figuring I could lose my beard in translation.  I point to the scissors, she “gets it” laughs and trims me up using scissors and a comb;  I end up with a very nice job and we wrap for the day………. I had heard about head and neck massages, but it didn’t happen here, at least not the first time…………maybe she was being gentle, etc. etc. The bill for the whole nine yards was 8 yuan……maybe a buck ten……..not bad.  

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