A haircut in China

Ok, so I was scolded for not updating the blog with enough words (hi DK). Here then, is a brief description of getting a haircut on Baise Lu, Shanghai.

November 25, Beijing standard time, I decided that enough was enough; I had to get a haircut in Shanghai. I had managed to avoid it thus far by sneaking in a haircut while in Singapore, but that was a month ago and my locks were getting a little too locky. I was, as my office-mates said, starting to "look very Chinese."

The first step was figuring out which salons were legitimate, because here there are hair salons, and there are "hair salons." Just on our block alone, there are at least seven salons, but I was only interested in the well-lit and large ones (no shady stained rooms please). I also remembered that one in particular had a good mix of male and female clientele, plus it was called Aiya, which I liked (it's an exclamation of surprise in Chinese). So Aiya it was.

Cole was supposed to back me up, but she died on the couch and couldn't get up. I was on my own. Ok. I got on my bike and rode out of the school, onto Baise Lu. It was 5:30 in the afternoon, and all of the night street vendors were out in force. I only had the fading dusk light to guide me in avoiding riding on the various blankets, socks, dvds, flatware (street flatware!), marinated eggs, etc....In addition, by then, all of the schools were out (we're surrounded by three other large schools besides Shanghai High School), and kids took to the sidewalk in that very chinese way of walking, otherwise known as the meandering, zombie-like shuffling wave. In the end, I walked with my bike to my side.

Enter Aiya, and four greeters welcome me, and then ask me....something. What? Um. Sorry, I don't speak Mandarin, I say in Mandarin, which only makes them not believe me. Er...I want a haircut, I say in Cantonese. They squint, and tilt their heads. I say it again and make a cutting motion with my fingers. Ah! Yes. Haircut.

After getting my hair washed (where I had to struggle through another very short and broken Mandarin conversation: I'm American, I teach at Shanghai High School, I've been here for three months, etc....), I make my way to another chair, where a guy with spiky, red-tinged hair (pretty much required here) started to comb my wet hair.

He pointed to a picture of a magazine. I looked at it, reasonable short hair, neat. Good enough. Ok, I say. He then tells me that it'll take a couple hours and cost 180 rmb. Um, maybe not. I still don't know what the process was, but I opted for a normal cut instead.

As the guy cuts my hair, four other Aiya employees crowd around me. Mandarin questions bombard me from all sides. I smile nervously, er...I don't understand I say. I try Cantonese, which confuses them even more. Then I tell them that I'm American.

One guy in particular gets up close to me, about an inch away, and says in English, "But you look Chinese." Sigh. Again, the concept of Chinese-American is too much. I won't go on too much longer about it, but in the end, the haircut was great, and it cost 15 rmb, or about $1.25

The whole experience was so odd, because, for the first time, I was the spectacle. Usually I can avoid it, but in the salon I was trapped, without cole to run interference (nothing is as distracting as a white person). In many ways, I was even more foreign to them then someone like Nicole. The people here literally cannot fathom that I'm from the United States. Most of them settle that I must be from Guangzhou or southern china, since I can speak Cantonese.

What else has happened? We just had our first lesson with our Mandarin tutor, and found out how little we really knew. In fact, right now all of our conversation skills revolve around food and transportation, and that's about it.

The teaching has been going well for the most part. Navigating through all of the rules that change every other month has been difficult, but the kids have been good. I've settled into this odd, older brother role with most of them, and some of them have even started to jump on me, which is what they do to each other and the Chinese teachers.

And that's about it. We're in the stretch with no vacation days for over a month. We don't even get Thanksgiving off, but tomorrow a group of us teachers will have dinner at The City Diner, which is an American restaurant. Cole covered our other China Thanksgiving (that we had last week) on her blog.

Next, I'll post some videos of the Shanghai Art Museum Biennial. Ack, I switched tenses again midway through my post. China is definitely deteriorating the writing.