Haircuts aren't what they used to be. They're better. Theoretically, anyway.
When I was very young, one used to go to the neighborhood barbershop, take a seat and wait for the chair to open--as there was generally one chair and one barber--get his hair cut when his turn came around, then pay his two bits and go home, generally itchy and unhappy but relieved.
Now it is more of a salon type experience, with several or more than several barbers at work, who give a fussy sort of special attention to what "style" you'd like them to accomplish for the show of your head about town. It costs more than two bits, too.
Here in Bali, things have changed very quickly in the last seven years. When I first came here, the experience was a bit like being plucked from place and time and set back down in the America of 50 years ago. Once again, you would find yourself in a little one-man shop, Potong Rambut. You would take your seat and have your hair cut by a man whose tools consisted of a pair of scissors and a comb, and that was it. Even the price was about the same.
You can still see these little shops, but more and more often they have been replaced by the modern 'salon'.
I am speaking, by the way, of haircuts because I got mine cut today. I go to a shop just up the street from my house. It's a fairly new place, been there about a year, I guess. Here, you have three chairs, and of course three barbers--magnificently trained young men who comb and snip and buzz and fuss with the carefulness of three Picassos. How short do you wants the sides? How much off the top? How about the back? Sideburns short or no sideburns? Are you sure? Do you want my advice?
After the work is finished, you are escorted to the back of the shop, where you recline on a leather couch and get a shampoo, and after this you are returned to the chair for a neck, shoulder and head massage.
This is where the 'theoretical' part of this superior process comes in--for theoretically, it should be an extra treat to be pampered with a massage, but in practice, where my case is concerned, there is more pain than pleasure to it.
Anyone who has followed my blog will no doubt recollect the multiple tedious entries I have written about the persistent pain in just this part of my body. Being craned backward in this chair therefore, while thumbs and fingers dig into my muscles, brings torment where it should have brought ease and comfort.
Why, then, did I not simply tell the man to stop? Well, I will explain it this way:
When I was very young, I had a friend who was deathly afraid of the dentist. Novocain could not be used, because he was also deathly afraid of that. And yet there were cavities that needed to be addressed. It was decided, therefore, that he should be taken to a new sort of dentist--a combination dentist and hypnotist. You won't feel a thing, he was told. This was the modern, cutting edge method (with no doubt a modern cutting edge fee attached). So he went to the dentist, looked deeply into his eyes, felt sleepy, very sleepy and completely, wonderfully relaxed (he was told), and then simply squinched his eyes, held his breath and clenched his teeth as the dental mesmerist inflicted exquisite pain upon his dentition.
Why didn't you say anything? we asked when the whole thing was over and the truth was out.
I didn't want to cause trouble, he said. I didn't want to disappoint everyone.
Well, there you have it. The after-cut massage was supposed to be special, the finishing touch. I did not want to disappoint the barber, who had done the cut, the shampoo, and the massage all for 50,000 Rupiah (less than 5 dollars).
I survived, in any case, and my hair looks like a work of art--though of the minimalist school, given the thinness of what there is to work with.
When I was very young, one used to go to the neighborhood barbershop, take a seat and wait for the chair to open--as there was generally one chair and one barber--get his hair cut when his turn came around, then pay his two bits and go home, generally itchy and unhappy but relieved.
Now it is more of a salon type experience, with several or more than several barbers at work, who give a fussy sort of special attention to what "style" you'd like them to accomplish for the show of your head about town. It costs more than two bits, too.
Here in Bali, things have changed very quickly in the last seven years. When I first came here, the experience was a bit like being plucked from place and time and set back down in the America of 50 years ago. Once again, you would find yourself in a little one-man shop, Potong Rambut. You would take your seat and have your hair cut by a man whose tools consisted of a pair of scissors and a comb, and that was it. Even the price was about the same.
You can still see these little shops, but more and more often they have been replaced by the modern 'salon'.
I am speaking, by the way, of haircuts because I got mine cut today. I go to a shop just up the street from my house. It's a fairly new place, been there about a year, I guess. Here, you have three chairs, and of course three barbers--magnificently trained young men who comb and snip and buzz and fuss with the carefulness of three Picassos. How short do you wants the sides? How much off the top? How about the back? Sideburns short or no sideburns? Are you sure? Do you want my advice?
After the work is finished, you are escorted to the back of the shop, where you recline on a leather couch and get a shampoo, and after this you are returned to the chair for a neck, shoulder and head massage.
This is where the 'theoretical' part of this superior process comes in--for theoretically, it should be an extra treat to be pampered with a massage, but in practice, where my case is concerned, there is more pain than pleasure to it.
Anyone who has followed my blog will no doubt recollect the multiple tedious entries I have written about the persistent pain in just this part of my body. Being craned backward in this chair therefore, while thumbs and fingers dig into my muscles, brings torment where it should have brought ease and comfort.
Why, then, did I not simply tell the man to stop? Well, I will explain it this way:
When I was very young, I had a friend who was deathly afraid of the dentist. Novocain could not be used, because he was also deathly afraid of that. And yet there were cavities that needed to be addressed. It was decided, therefore, that he should be taken to a new sort of dentist--a combination dentist and hypnotist. You won't feel a thing, he was told. This was the modern, cutting edge method (with no doubt a modern cutting edge fee attached). So he went to the dentist, looked deeply into his eyes, felt sleepy, very sleepy and completely, wonderfully relaxed (he was told), and then simply squinched his eyes, held his breath and clenched his teeth as the dental mesmerist inflicted exquisite pain upon his dentition.
Why didn't you say anything? we asked when the whole thing was over and the truth was out.
I didn't want to cause trouble, he said. I didn't want to disappoint everyone.
Well, there you have it. The after-cut massage was supposed to be special, the finishing touch. I did not want to disappoint the barber, who had done the cut, the shampoo, and the massage all for 50,000 Rupiah (less than 5 dollars).
I survived, in any case, and my hair looks like a work of art--though of the minimalist school, given the thinness of what there is to work with.
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