Reflections on Zhongguo and my hair..

I googled Beijing salons online. I decided on one that also sold hair products. I wrote down the address for my taxi driver in characters. Just the English name, “Beijing Hair Culture,” was alluring. After you have been in China for a while, anything that has an affiliation with the US or Europe becomes disproportionately appetizing. Their website advertised private rooms with massage chairs and DVD players. This may have been my dreadlock delirium. I hailed a taxi outside my dormitory and explained that my salon was inside the Hyatt Regency hotel, thinking the hotel would serve as a landmark. My driver rolled down the window each time a fellow cab driver pulled up, and even stopped the car to walk down the street asking people for directions. When I asked him if he knew where he was going he said “dangran” or “of course!”

After an hour, I accepted that we were not going to find my salon. I begrudgingly paid 42 kuai (about five American dollars, a lot in China) and opened the door of the cab. I walked up and down the streets trying to find a shop that appeared as if it cut hair, or a well-groomed person who might know the place to go. Every person I asked seemed to know the difference between a comb and hairbrush but they lacked leads to a supplier. I finally stumbled upon a shop with the characters I knew for “hair”: “头发。”

This was definitely not the fancy western salon I had envisioned, but I thought to myself “this place could work.” I could hear Chinese pop music inside. It was simple enough that I understood the lyrics—the chorus was “wo ai ni” (I love you). Before my hand reached the door handle, I was greeted with smiles from at least ten employees. They were wearing matching bumblebee yellow smocks, black pants and shoes, and matching yellow hats. They swarmed around me, showing me pictures of all the colors they could dye my hair, and styles they could mold it into with scissors. One suggested a trendy bowl-cut with feathered sideburns like MianMian, a popular but banned author in China. Their excitement increased exponentially when I answered in Chinese. The swarm ushered me to a plush leather chair with a footrest where I explained that I wanted a brush and not a comb. One leader exclaimed that he knew where they had a hairbrush. I was advised to sit back, put my feet up, and wait for my Excalibur. I kept hoping they would offer green tea while I waited but they didn’t.

The salon’s street was five blocks south of Xidan, one of Beijing’s chic shopping centers. It was a business district. The salon air had a palpable fuzziness. It smelled like a laundry room. The vinyl floor was a shiny black, reminiscent of the patent leather boots. Very American 1980s. I imagined these floors in a Madonna music video. They are at once sticky but so shiny you can see your reflection in the squares. I thought to myself—the floors are probably black because the majority of their customers have black hair, it would be less noticeable on the floor. How practical, how Chinese. Each of the hair cutting stations had a ceiling-to-floor mirror where you could monitor the progress of your new look. Chinese magazines with glossy photographs of Shanghaise girls sucking lollipops and sporting neon eye shadow and ribbon-knotted pigtails lined the tables, promising coolness. Their skin was pale and smooth. The Shanghaiese girls had crooked teeth. Black lacquer-framed posters covered the black walls with heavily airbrushed Chinese models—male and female—posing with attitude and pouty glossed lips. Some wore shortened uniform skirts and un-tucked oxfords. Unabashedly sexual, yet childish. They weren't from Beijing.

The smell of leftover Hunanese noodles wafted from the back room. All those leather chairs with footrests were empty, and the sheet of dust made it seem like they hadn’t had a customer for a while. The employees were happy to pass the time flirting and giggling with one another. The girls sat together on the front desk swinging their legs and the brave boys made them laugh. It reminded me of the lunchroom in eighth grade. For half an hour, they tried to sell me various conditioners and length-increasing serums. Finally, the leader emerged to a reception of applause with a hairbrush in his right hand. He smiled as if he had just pulled the brush out of the belly of a dragon. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where he found it. It would explain what took him so long in the back room. The hairbrush in question was obviously a used one, out from which he was pulling old hairs and dust bunnies, as he negotiated a price with me. With a straight face he attempted to convince me that this hairbrush was worth 100 kuai. He told me it was “made in America.” They all looked up at me eagerly in anticipation. I said no thank you and continued on my quest.