One night last summer, I sat on the corner at a Beijing subway stop at 2 am waiting for a friend of mine from America to arrive in a cab. Out of the shadows, a man approached me.
“Hey bro,” he said, “you busy?”
I thought this was an odd question to ask someone who was sitting in the dark on the sidewalk at two in the morning. As it turns out, No, I was not busy.
“Then come on and we’ll find you someone to play with. We’ve got all types…”
Despite the well-delivered sales pitch, I declined the invitation, committing myself to the drudgery that is life without venereal disease. Besides, I didn’t need that sort of thing, because in Beijing, there’s another experience that’s more or less the same. It’s called getting a haircut.
For those not yet initiated in what getting a haircut in China is like, let me paint the picture. Your rock star experience begins when a young man standing outside a nondescript storefront beckons you inside with the promise of a great price. Already the memories of past haircuts start going through your mind: the bubbles, the shampoo, and oh, the warm water…
Ignoring the fact that this man’s natural hair color is surely not red with blonde highlights, you nod, and with a sideways glance, saunter inside. There, a dozen employees greet you, as everyone not currently with a client is mulling around the entrance area. Their eyes follow you hungrily as you go to the counter and decide which price range you want. Three dollars US, six, or nine? Everyone has their own preference.
At this point, a Korean man will come over and sit you down in a fake leather chair. Chinese people generally think Koreans are ugly and don’t hide their opinions, but when it comes to hair, the Koreans own the town. If your barber isn’t a Korean guy in his mid-twenties, then it’s likely a Chinese guy who is a) trying to look Korean and b) trying to look like he’s in his mid-twenties. The line between fantasy and reality continues to blur.
The man takes a dollop of special shampoo and begins to massage it into your head. He goes around and around and around until there’s foam everywhere. Then, he’ll spend ten minutes massaging your scalp.
“It’s been a long time since you got a head rub,” he says.
“Yes it is,” you reply. Too long.
Eventually the rubbing stops—a sad moment, but it’s only to switch positions, as he leads you to a washing bed, where you lay down with your head in a sink. The water gushes on. He asks you how you like it. You say you like it hot.
He rinses down your head while chatting you up. A rhythm emerges in your shampoo talk. 感觉好不好？”How does it feel?”
“It feels good,” you say. “Real good.”
After this, the hair-washer gives way to his friend, who will (finally) begin to cut your hair. At first this seems strange, as you already feel an attachment to the first guy. He’s been so good to you. But then the new barber is introduced to you as Teacher Han, and you’re immediately drawn in by his dyed brown hair that covers his eyes in an emo-stlye comb-down and his collared shirt with an image of a plaid vest on the front.
Teacher Han, you are told, is the best barber here. You know you’re getting the special, foreigner treatment. All of a sudden, you no longer think about shampoo guy. Maybe later you might feel guilty about forgetting him so quickly, but right now, you hand yourself over to Teacher Han.
Teacher Han starts cutting your hair, but doesn’t do too much, leaving you tantalizingly unsure what he’s going to do next. In the US, you’ve been to tons of salons, and they just want to get you in and out of the door as quickly as possible. But Teacher Han moves very slowly, carefully measuring each move. This is to provide the best possible service—taking longer on each customer shows that they care about you.
Then, well before you’re finished, you’re handed back over to shampoo guy. It’s time to wash your hair again. This is the big difference between your experience in American salons and Chinese salons: stamina. In the US, they might wash your hair once, then cut it. Here, they wash, then cut, then wash, then cut, over and over and over.
An hour later, you stumble out of the salon. Your hair is perfectly done and Teacher Han has handed you a punch card with his name on it, so you can come back and see him anytime you like. And the best part, for the penny pinchers? In China, you don’t tip.