05.12.07

The Year of the (Guinea) Pig

Posted in Barbershop at 3:48 pm by Benjamin Ross

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If you’ve ever been into a Chinese barber shop, you know that you need to look no further than the employees’ heads to glimpse at the latest trends in Chinese punk/drag/heavy metal/hipster fashion. From afros, to mohawks, to the old fashioned finger in the electrical socket cut, the cumulative hairstyle collection of a typical Chinese salon staff is enough to make Dennis Rodman look like Mao Zedong.

In case you have ever wondered why the guy washing your hair looks like Mr. Sparkle at a drag show, the reason is quite simple. Part of the de facto responsibilities of being a little brother or a little sister include being a guinea pig for the other employees to train (experiment) on. As Mr. Zheng emphasized in our meeting the other night, the reason people work in a salon is because it offers them the reason to learn new skills. The typical barbershop employee starts out like me as a little brother or sister, sweeping up hair, cleaning the bathrooms, washing hair, and giving simple therapeutic massages. However, everybody is always in a constant state of training. After the basic tasks are mastered, it is time to move on to dyes, perms, and hair treatment, and finally learning how to give haircuts. Obviously the training cannot be done on customers, so the heads of the employees, especially those of the little brothers and sisters, serve as the training grounds.

The youngest member of our team’s name is Huang (fake name). He’s 18 years old, but standing barely 5 feet tall and with the face of a little boy, he looks like he’s just had his Bar Mitzvah. Yesterday, somehow it was decided that Huang’s short black hair needed to be permed into spiky afro puff (I know that’s an oxymoron, but bare with me here) and dyed bright orange. The other employees sat him down at the barber chair, covered him with a cape, and twisted his hair up into little spikes with aluminum foil draped in perming solution. After letting it sit for half an hour, applying the orange dye, and then letting it sit another half hour, Huang came out with a head looking like an ignited match tip. I’m not sure if the dying and perming was his decision, or one of the management, but he certainly took one for the team. To be honest, it didn’t look half bad, as long as he wasn’t planning on applying for any job outside of the haircutting industry. Therefore, I have decided from here on out to refer to him as Carrottop.

As for me, I have only experienced minimal peer pressure to be experimented on, and that resulted in my haircut by committee last week from several high ranking little brothers and sisters learning to cut. However, the opportunity to dye my hair was offered by one of the barbers yesterday, and I think I am going to take him up on it. My plan is to start with some highlights, and then in another week or two go all out with purple or orange. After all, when else I am I going to be in a working environment where the expected appearance is on par with being a stage dancer on Kiss tour?

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