The Price of Beauty

I love getting my hair cut in China. For $1 you can get a wash, cut, and blow dry. For $12 they'll dye and perm it for you too. Personally, I'm much more interested in the former than the latter, but brown hair dye and fake curls are all the rage among Chinese youngsters, male and female alike. Therefore, I dutifully accompanied my friend to the salon to take advantage of the $12 deal.

(Another convenient feature of a Chinese salon? Their long hours: 9 am to 10 pm. Cheap labor is a wonderful thing.)

While I was charmed by the amount of personal attention we received, I think my friend and I were both surprised by the length of time it took to dye and perm her hair. I don't know about you, but seven hours seems a bit excessive. Maybe it was because two of the five employees had only been in the hair business for three months? Whatever the reason, it wasn't all bad. It gave us a chance to make friends with the owner and staff. Our conversation ranged from Yao Ming (hot, or not? I say not.), to the details of the hair cutting business, to American foreign policy. By the end of the evening, we had become best buds. We walked one of the interns home after work, and the other one flirted shamelessly with us for four of the seven hours we were there. Here's a photo of him putting the moves on my friend:

While I had no intention of getting my hair cut when I walked into the salon, the staffs' enthusiasm for my hair eventually won me over. The owner literally made every staff member run their fingers through my hair just for the experience of feeling a foreigner's hair. They were very excited to get a chance to see what it looked like wet, so eventually they dropped their price down to zero, at which point I acquiesced. So yeah, I got a free wash, cut, and blow dry. Also, because they were bored and curious, they decided to play with the straightening iron too. Which, while isn't really on the top of my list of ways to spend a Friday afternoon, isn't necessarily at the bottom either.

Update: Remember how I said a reporter took my photo during the solar eclipse last week? Well, you can find it online here, along with that of an elderly gentleman and a small child.