you know that commercial for HSBC, the one where there are 3 pictures of something (say, wedding presents, teeth for the tooth fairy/mouse/whatever, or formal dress) that are so totally different for the one concept, and at the bottom, it says ‘never underestimate the importance of local knoweldge’? i think their next concept should be hairdressing.
in Europe, getting my hair cut means sitting in an awkward position with my head hanging backward in a sink while my hair’s getting washed, sometimes even massaged (if you’re paying for it), then i’m moved over to a seat with one or more mirrors confronting me while my hair gets cut and blow dried in about 10 mns. I’ve been in and out of such a place in 15 mns.
move over to Japan, where my first experience was very scary, and not so much because of the language barrier (i’d waited long enough to be able to hold a conversation), but because of what happened. first, i was put into a chair which, with a push of a button, went horizontal, so that my head was actually hanging into the sink. then the guy puts a towel on my face. i realised later that thereare 2 reasons for this: the first one is to make sure i don’t get splashed by water/shampoo, the other is to make it more comfortable for me and the guy, so that i don’t have to look at him. next thing i know, he talks to me. it took me a while to understand that he was merely telling me what he was doing (to make sure noone gets shocked, i guess, cos it would obviously really surprise people who’ve been to the hairdressers a hundred times before, which is most people in Japan). it went like this: i’m turning on the water, i’m starting to make your hair wet, i’m putting shampoo in your hair, i’m massaging your head, i’m rinsing your hair, i’m putting conditioner in your hair, … with once and a while a little ‘is it too hot?’, ‘it is ok?’, ‘am i hurting you?’.
once the washing was over, the cutting came up. unlike Europe, where if i want half my hair cut off, they’ll start by cutting off nearly that, then working more finely on the rest, this guy was only cutting half a centimetre at the time. i didn’t understand this was their way. i thought he had misunderstood my instructions, so i told him to cut more off. he said it wouldn’t, then, look like what i’d asked for, but i didn’t care. so he just kept cutting off my hair, centimetre by centimetre, until the new length had been reached. the whole thing was topped off by a 10-mn massage of my neck and shoulders. by the time i left, it was an hour and a half later! on the plus side, i got to practise my Japanese. and see myself in a huge full-size mirror for the whole cutting part.
i thought i’d seen it all, when i attended a wedding in Malaysia. we went to get out hair set before the ceremony (i was bridesmaiding). we sat down in the chairs in front of the mirrors, waiting for the hairdressers. they arrived and started putting shampoo in our hair. right there. while we were sitting up. after the shampoo came something else, maybe conditioner, but there was no rinsing in between. or everything you’ve been taught never to do. after a head massage, we were taken to sinks to get everything out, and then we got our hair set. we weren’t getting cuts, so i can’t tell you how different that experience would have been, but it was weird.
so there you have it. it’s not just the money, the food, the fashion and the mentality that differs, when you travel a lot, it’s also simple things like getting a haircut.
