On Haircuts

I came fully intending to grow back the ponytail.

If only other expectations blew such pissant raspberries as they got steamrolled.

Certainly there are times I would love to have the air conditioning of a neck-wrap soaked in ice water, but that thought is followed immediately by the thought of cleaning mold out of the inside of my camera. Just imagine what would grow in moist farang hair....

My first haircut was in Chiang Mai. It was in a mall so it was big enough and developed enough to have English speaking staff, but it was in the basement and, I hoped, a step aside from the worst farang fees. Even better, there was an open chair in front of a guy flaming hard enough to melt a military ramrod from 50 paces.

Flamer fussed and flitted around until everything was to his liking, then passed me off to a pouting girl who'd spent the session flipping through fashion and gossip magazines. She shampooed my hair and gave me about ten minutes of the greatest scalp massage I have ever encountered.

I didn't even flinch at the bill (250 TB).

Little bit different story down here.

I've heard they're holy rollers, I've heard they're Baptist missionaries, and I didn't associate either term with Koreans. But they're my neighbors, two ladies with a beauty shop next door.

They do facials, haircutting and styling, nails, and therapeutic massage. In the front of the room where they sit for meals and sleep on floor pads (still not used to that).

One lady is my personal specialist after two visits. She doesn't need to ask to cut my hair the same way it is, just shorter, and when she gave me a foot massage, she squeezed my feet for a minute, looked up, and said, "Jeb ni," [hurt here] while pointing on herself all the places I was currently hurting.

When she's on cutting duty, she makes a general outline with a buzzer--define the perimeter--then grazes with scissors before graduating to a straight razor. She waves that sucker all over, exciting up stray strands and rebellious follicles to be shorn off before they realize what happened, and then pats things down into a cloud of talcum powder.

Altogether, it takes half again as long as her partner administers the typical schoolboy buzz cut, half as long as a Fantastic Sam cut, and twice as long as is comfortable having someone wave a razor around your head.

And I walk with hair razed into terrified submission for almost 25% as much as it cost in Chiang Mai.

Hmm.