Saturday, April 19, 2008

the universal accident

after 7 years in germany, I've finally come to a startling conclusions about german hair-dressers. They have a psychic-link to each other. I have no other way to explain my observations otherwise.

Having looked like smoky the bear for about 3 months, (hairy, scruffy, etc), i finally decided to cough out the 15 euros for a haircut. Since I was in a big hurry, I decided to go to the hair dresser around the corner. I used to go there for a reason and stopped for a while. I wonder why?

well.. it wasn't a bad hair-cut in the most general sense of the word. I was asked how i would like it - so after he mentioned using the lawn-mower to trim the weed-like growth on the sides of my head, i agreed and paid not much attention.

He did a good job. It was shortened. Unfortunately, he did not stop there: he went on to work on the top of my hair.. Since I was sleepy,and it was too late to protest, i just shut my eyes and hoped for the best.

the results were pretty ok - if you don't mind looking like you just finished your army training. It was at that point that I remembered why I refused to get a hair cut there: no matter what i said, they would always give me the same hair style.

To make things even more intriguing, I found that my chances of getting the same hair-style at other hair-dressers are approximately the same. Lets see now.. that's that nice place with the older ladies giving hair cuts. There's that nice saloon with younger ladies, but apparently i got the same hair cut.. then there's this place (cheapest among the lot for the same cut, with a shampoo at the end. its quite worth the price because the other places do not offer hair-wash). Then there's the other place with nice and patient young people, giving the same hair-cut at a much inflated price.

really. Imagine this. This youngish-looking asian guy enters into a hair-dressing place, plops himself into the seat, and before anything happens, they get the idea "asian. that means military". I could just go to any hair dresser, sit down without saying anything, and get the same hair-cut from any place in germany.

Do they go "okayyyy. here's an asian guy. He needs a hair cut. I'll give him the asian hair cut"? Do they have a SOP for "how to: the military asian hair" in their School of weedcutting Hair dressing? Or maybe they really have this subconscious psychic link to the great-hairless deity governing all things to do with hair-cuts..

Next time, I may have to do a bruce lee impersonation of sorts to get some decent hair.



I've long given up saying that I had a haircut. I usually say "No, I had my usual accident". That seems more apt somehow (not that its an accident from their point of view), especially when its not what I intended to have. Despite the amount of protests I raised, I've yet to find a hair-dresser who would "give the customer what he wants".

2 comments:

Jing..xx said...

Look on the bright side- it means you save a bit of money by having a longer time in-between hair cuts. :P You can wait for a long time until you look like Smoky before going again.

Cher Ping said...

unfortunate, i seem to get inflicted with the curse of being beary-like. my hair shoots out faster than i can crop it.

you know, in this light, balding might actually be good for me. when i do start to lose my roofing, i'll zip along to the hair-dresser and get it all shaved off. hopefully, i can get my dome polished and shiny too. :)