Cut Your Hair

I don't want to mention anything about how long it's been since the last post since I've started off the last 3 or so like that, but it's been awhile. Sorry. I think part of the problem may be that I'm not drawing a paycheck from this venture. Perhaps if there were some monetary incentive... So if my faithful readers wanna take up a collection I'd be willing to listen to offers. I won't even listen to proposals that don't offer full dental so don't waste either of our time unless you're bringing a hefty package to the table. I'm talkin at least three weeks vacation. Oh, and I don't handle my own negotiations. You'll have to contact my business manager.

(I'm frequently told of new readers to my blog that I don't really know, or barely know, and I wonder how my sense of humor plays to these people. Not that it concerns me, I'm just curious. I crack myself up and that's enough really. No one can make me laugh like I can.)

So I just got a haircut. After grocery shopping, I think, this was the second scenario into which I've entered, all by my lonesome, a zero english environment. It was kinda exciting I must say. Not so long ago I placed a great value on my hair, and was very particular about what it looked like. (This no doubt comes as a shock to those of you whe have known me for awhile and remember the string of "unkempt" hairstyles I have sported throughout the years. But you must understand, that was all on purpose. I wanted to look like I hadn't seen a haircut [or hairbrush] in years.) Anyway as I have become old, a "square" as the young 'uns like to say nowadays, I have become considerably less concerned with my hair. Now my main concern is going the longest time possible before its time to go back for another trim. Not so much that I'm willing to shave it of course. I'm not that square. But the point is I am not near as concerned with the quality of haircut I recieve anymore. More so the quantity I guess you could say. So I walk into the place and they take me to the back for a quick shampoo and then sit me down in the chair. The guy (haircutting is a young man's profession in China. You rarely see a female haircutter person) tries to ask me what type of haircut I want. (I assume that's what he was asking me,) and after a moment of thought I was able to retrieve, from a still-under-constuction corner of the linguistic center of my brain, the Mandarin phrase "I don't understand what you're saying." So he just went to work. And he had an audience. Something I should probably mention, in SAT analogy format, foreigners (especially western foreigners) are to China as celebrities are to America. There is lots of staring, some pointing, when you walk by they talk about you. You can't understand them of course, but they are talking about you. If I had one yuan for every time one person in a small group walking in front of me casually glanced back and noticed me, and consequently, after a quick word from said person, every member of said group also turned to get a good look, I would have 13,743.659 yuan. (I'm not sure where that .659 comes from either, I think it has something to do with the exchange rate.) So he was cutting, and intermittently answering questions from his audience, most of which I didn't catch, but I did understand him saying "He doesn't speak Mandarin," and "He's American." That last one was a little offensive, or, it hurt my feelings at least . Not that he was wrong, I am American, but I didn't tell him that. Which means I must have fit the American stereotype. Which is not real flattering. Well, I shouldn't say that. What I understand to be the "American stereotype," which is almost entirely western European (and Middle Eastern, thank you Main Stream Media,) is not flattering. Neither is it necessarily undeserved, but I thought I would be the exception. I guess I really am a square. How depressing. Well anyway he finished and... it's not bad. It's not quite what I would have asked for had I been able to communicate with the right honorable gentleman, but I'm not unhappy at all.

These pictures are from my webcam, which should explain the quality.

P.S.

To those readers who are interested (those of you whom I really care about,) I beg you, I urge you, take a few minutes, listen to Coltane's My Favorite Things available in my musical playlist apparatus on the right side of your computer screen. McCoy Tyner (piano) is out of control. I mean, obviously, but I've been listening as I write and it blows me away. A spiritual experience.