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How to Survive a Chinese Mullet.
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A few summers ago I was visiting my family in Beijing, China. It was summer and I felt free and happy to back home. I was downtown visiting my favorite shopping district, Xi dan, where they have a plethora of markets, and a massive indoor shopping center. I was walking to wards this indoor shopping center, and suddenly this little Chinese man with a huge mullet grabs my arm and starts speaking to me in Chinese, "Your hair is very beautiful!" He says. I said, "Xie xie," and turned to go, but he started pulling me into this market place, saying, "Come with me!" motioning to his own hair and then to mine.
Now most people would have probably given him a hammer fist to the radial nerve and screamed "NO! HELP!! GET AWAY!!" but since there were so many people around, I didn't feel much alarm and let him lead me into the market."Don't worry," he said, "Your hair will look very good," As I passed vendors, they all leaned out of their booths and began jabbering away at one another, pointing.
Finally we get to this hair salon. Chinese rap music was blaring loudly from it-and were those disco lights? This man sits me into the chair and I am instantly surrounded by about 8 young Chinese men and women with identical 80's-David Bowie-esque- mullets. "Oh no." I thought.
They all start talking to me, "Your Chinese is so good!" They exclaimed,"She is so beautiful! Her hair is so beautiful," All of their eager hands touched my head. The little man, who seemed to be in charge, pointed to this other man who rolled to wards me on a stool with a pair of scissors and a comb, "This man, is very good," he said confidently. "Wait wait wait," I said, putting my hands up. Suddenly the stool man shoves a huge book of hairstyles into my lap.As I flip through, I notice it's the same model in all the pictures, but she has different styles of wigs on. He begins explaining with each picture what he wants to do to my hair. "We'll cut it shorter on top, but keep it longer on the bottom because if we cut it too short it will make your face look fat," Everyone leans in, nodding enthusiastically."No no no," I said,"I can't, I'm sorry." Suddenly I'm lifted from my seat and led to wards the sink, "Wash hair first," a Chinese woman with blue contacts, heavy black eyeliner and a bleached mullet says. "No!" I say, starting to feel panicked, "No I am sorry, I don't want to cut my hair!" From the amassing crowd I see the little man's head pop up, "For free! No charge!" He said, "We cut your hair for free!"
"I am sorry!" I said, wrenching my arm free and making a beeline for the door. I looked behind me as I ran. All of them were hanging out of the doorway, watching me go with dejected looks on their faces, mullets drooping.
It takes a lot of strength to reject a free hair cut, even in China, but if this ever happens to you, run, run for your life. There are a million of these little salons dotted around the city (some of the "stylists" aren't even real hair stylists- just prostitutes in disguise) If ever in Beijing, I'd recommend the hair salons in the well- known hotels, like Holiday Inn at Lido, or the Kempinski hotel. If in Shun Yi, go to Gary's Salon. The man studied in the UK and knows what he's doing, and all of his employees have also been trained properly.
It doesn't matter where you are in the world, you need to be able to trust your stylist with at least two things: dicussions on the inner complexities of your love life and your basic hair needs.If you aren't able to communicate either, you should probably go somewhere else.
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