Well, I meant to get a haircut before I left China but after breaking my wrist and everything I just ran out of time to get it done. Well, I'm happy that I waited now because Chinese hair salons are way better than American hair salons! I don't think I have ever had a hair cut in the states last any longer than 30 minutes but my new 'do here took about 2 hours. It was definitely a little bit of overkill, but I think that the Chinese people in Dalian are really serious about their hair - after all, Dalian is the fashion city of China. Almost every other shop on a block is a hair salon here, for real. So you know they're going to do a good job for you!April and Jonah (two Chinese women in the company) took my friend Bell and I to a salon where they usually go. Bell and I definitely got rock star treatment while we were in there! Our cuts started with a 20-30 minute hairwashing which for me just felt like the most wonderful head massage that I've ever had. The guy that did it had this huge poofy hair that was died a grayish color. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of him but it must take him forever to get his hair in its beehive state everyday. He was wearing a mask to cover his mouth while he did it so he kind of looked like he was about to perform surgery on me.
After that, I was led to my chair where the master stylist in the salon awaited me. I learned that he was the master stylist later because the other ones were having some trouble with Bell's hair and they called him over for some assistance. I don't know why he didn't just do Bell's hair in the first place because hers is way more difficult than mine- it's thick and really curly. As she says, it's Dominican hair. From the moment we stepped in the door, the stylists were obsessed with her hair because most of them had never seen hair like hers before. They ALL gathered around her to touch it, it was so ridiculous lol. They also were surprised to see someone with even darker hair than theirs. Basically she had a little fan club during her cut!
My hair on the other hand is not so interesting to them besides the color. They asked me if it came from nature (aka was it natural). I just had one lone fan who stood there smiling and watching my haircut the entire time. Maybe he was the master stylist's apprentice? My stylist was very serious during my cut though. I tried to say a few things to him in Chinese but he didn't even crack a smile. I learned later that this was probably because Jonah told him in Chinese when we came in that if they did a bad job on Bell and I's hair, we would never go back there. I can't believe she did that to him...that's not very cool. At the end of the process he was curling my hair and I didn't like where he was going with it so I got April to tell him to change what he had done. He seemed really frazzled and distraught when this happened so I told April to ask him if he was mad at me for making him change it (lol) and then he says in English, "Not alright", the only thing he said in English the entire night. I was like omg this guy is really nuts. Well, two things I learned afterwards- first, his behavior is easily explained by his fear of displeasing us for Jonah's threats, second, April told me later that he meant to say "Not at all" but of course she didn't explain this to me at the time so for the whole rest of the hair cut I thought this crazy hair stylist guy was mad at me. At any rate, two hours later my hair looked great and I was very happy with the job he had done. I felt terrible when I went to pay though- my cut cost only 30 kuai, which is less than $5. I know labor is cheap in China but seriously that is just ridiculous to me that they all spent so long pampering the crap out of me for that little money. You don't tip in China either so I couldn't even show my appreciation that way. I asked Jonah what I could do and she told me that next time I want my hair cut I could go back to the salon and only let him cut my hair- then perhaps he would get a raise.So a few things I noticed while I was there-
Many people working there were completely unoccupied and that's where the fan clubs came in. There are so many hair salons in Dalian that it is rare to see one that's packed with people. This is also true of the restaurants, they are always overstaffed.
The people there were really cracking me up. During my cut my stylist called over a guy wearing a vest and said something to him in Chinese. The guy pulls open his vest and I saw in the mirror that this was no ordinary vest- it was specially made for hair stylists because it had all these little places for him to put his hair cutting tools, and trust me he had a plethora of them. Again with the medical references, the whole scene reminded me of when a surgeon is operating on someone and he says "scalpel" and his assistant just hands it to him silently as he works.
Bell only asked to get her bangs straightened and cut, but 3 hours later they had done this along with chopping off half her hair. The guy cutting her hair said that he had seen someone cut this kind of hair before so I think he was just itchy to mess with it. Thankfully she said she had a mini heart attack when he started going at it but she just accepted it.
All of the hair stylists were male except for one. I'm not sure if this kind of ratio is the norm in Dalian but I really wouldn't be surprised at all if it was.
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