my barber and I

Just down the road a piece from my hagwon is a little one-room barbershop. It's nothing fancy. The proprietor, a small man with a shock of white hair and hands as soft as a baby's backside, uses old newspaper clippings to protect his tools from the damp. (The last time I went, it was the funny pages.) His towels are somewhat threadbare, and I once saw a rat scurrying around in the garbage piles outside his back door. But I don't blame him for any of that, nor even notice it. The establishment commands my respect.

My barber is a dignified old fellow. Indeed, his silence is almost intimidating. Realizing that neither of us speaks the other's language, we almost never speak unless it's absolutely necessary. He asks me what I want done with my hair with pointed fingers and gestures, and I nod or shake my head as the case may be. Then he silently and meticulously gives me a trim, and I for my part do my best to appear sober and dignified as well; as best I can when my hair is wet and my head is being pushed into more convenient positions. And so our strange, silent relationship has developed over successive trimmings into what some may consider to be a real rapport...or at least a singular acquaintance.

It started back in '08. I'd been in Korea several months, and had not yet gotten a haircut due to cowardice. You can understand my position: (largely) on my own in a new foreign country for the first time, not speaking the language, hardly reading the alphabet, nervous as all get-out. Desperation, however, finally won out. My hair is rather voluminous, and in the muggy island climate it was exploding into a lopsided bird's nest of frizz. I couldn't tolerate it any more, so I marched out one day and headed down the main street in search of a reliable barber.

The spot I selected seemed likely. It was a tiny, one-room place with two chairs and a couple of bookshelves with mirrors hung over the backboards. A TV stood on one side of the room, next to the wide sink; a hat stand and a couple of chairs were near the door. I didn't catch a glimpse of the owner, but still, the place seemed to offer the kind of trim I sought; certainly my chances were better here than in the fancier women's hair salon next door. It was just a matter of mustering my courage. I had no idea how negotiating for a haircut might fall out while attempting to negotiate the language barrier. However, I took a deep breath, set my teeth, and walked in...

...two days later.

The barber was sitting in one of his own chairs, smoking a languorous cigarette and staring at the ceiling. I have caught him doing this several times, either in patronizing him or just strolling by. It led me to develop the hypothesis that his business might be in difficulties. As I walked in, the old man shot a glance over his shoulder, then rose quickly but not guiltily from his chair. He was a short fellow, wearing a ratty white T-shirt and trousers that reached about mid-calf. He was wearing sandals. His face was lined; his eyes were hooded. His fingers were of average length, but thick and stubby. He never moved slowly; his pace was steady. When he gestured, he jerked his arms or hands about emphatically, as Koreans will. With a flat hand, he motioned me into the chair he'd vacated. I sat, my trepidation beginning to expire. He put one of his white, threadbare hand towels around my neck and a thinning, stained pink polyester sheet around my torso.

Then began the establishment of the pantomime intercourse my barber and I use to do business. He ran his hands through the air over my head; I nodded. Yes, I wanted my hair cut: back, sides and all. With his index fingers he traced an ascending parabola over my ears; I nodded again. Yes, I'd like the hair over my ears trimmed. He took a lock of my hair in his hands and pinched it between his index and middle finger at about half its length; I nodded one final time, emphatically. Yep, cut it in half, por favor. Expressionlessly, the barber walked around to the bookshelf and unveiled the tools of his trade: a pair of scissors, a brace of plastic combs, and a few trimmers, shielded from the humid island air by those aforementioned sheets of old newspaper. He chose the scissors and a comb and proceeded.

My sense of honor only increased in the next few minutes. I was treated to a free shampooing, and like the trim itself, it was the most thorough shampooing I'd ever experienced at a barbershop. First he soaked my head; put on an application of shampoo; rinsed; and repeated. His hands were amazingly soft. Then came the good old-fashioned exofoliating head-scrub: he raked his fingernails (gently) across my scalp, and gave my head another rinse and a scrub. Then he gave me a basin of water to wash my hands and face in. I didn't quite get it at first; I dunked my head under before he pulled me back up, chuckling, and pantomimed for me what I was supposed to do.

He brought me back to the chair and asked me (by running his hands through the air near his neck, cheeks and chin) if I wanted a shave. I declined. Then he blow-dried and combed my hair. He does this every time, and I haven't the heart (or the words) to ask him not to; it's not the blow-drying that I mind so much as the hairstyle he gives me. Every single strand sweeps back from my forehead as if I'd been facing head-on into a hurricane for a couple of hours. On a good day, I can muster up enough optimism to believe that I look like some Golden Age movie star; Tyrone Power, let's say, or even Clark Gable (if I could but grow a pencil-thin mustache!). On a bad day I think I look utterly fatuous.

But I do not blame the old man; the styling he treats as a work of art, too. As he blow-dried my hair, he gently ran his comb through it, lifting the locks so the air could reach to the roots, tenderly molding and sculpting. The fact that he molded it into a helmet of decades-outdated sexiness usually fails to impinge itself on my brain during the drying itself. That does not matter. The result, after I've finished taking a shower and re-combing it, is genuinely satisfactory. He cut it a little too short the first time, and my hats were blowing off in the wind for two weeks, but the trim was uniform and the exfoliation rather refreshing. I still felt honored to have been served by such a masterful tradesman.

Concluding at last, the old man motioned me out of the chair, and held up one finger. After a little initial confusion we managed to come to a consensus: ten thousand won for a trim and a shampooing. I forked over the money, he took it with both hands (a gesture of respect), bowed at the waist, so low he could've seen between his legs, and ushered me out of the shop. And so ended the First Haircut. The whole affair had taken the better part of an hour, and I felt as refreshed as if I'd just taken a bath.

I've gone back to him several times since then, and it's the same story: I come in, the proprietor motions me into a chair (the one nearest the door); he runs his hands through the air above my head, and I nod. His index fingers arc above my ears; I nod again. At some point, he inquires if I want a shave; sometimes I accept, sometimes not. If I don't, he warns me sternly (vocally, in Korean) to shave when I get home; I get the impression he doesn't want to see his art marred by unsightly stubble. He trims, he shampoos, he dries, he styles; I sit and try to look competent, stern and grateful, all at once. I hand him a 10,000-won note; he bows me out of the shop. I try to always say gamsa hamnida (thank you) or annyeong-hi kyeseyo (goodbye, when leaving); either I get a rising ye or ne (yes) or nothing at all.

I honestly cannot figure out whether the old man hates my foreign guts or values me as an inconvenient but loyal customer. He chuckles sometimes as I ineptly try to cleanse my face in his sink. We bow or wave when we pass each other on the street, or as I pass his shop and he sits on the concrete steps, smoking. Once, I believe, I even offended him. I brought a hat with me when I got my hair cut. My purpose was innocent; I'd been using it before I'd come to see him; I honestly had no intention of using it after (well, perhaps a little, but only in the utmost need of concealment). But he assumed the worst. When the trimming was complete he gestured emphatically at the hat and made an X-shape with his arms (a gesture known recognized across Asia as meaning "no way!"). His voice was sterner than usual as he warned me (I suppose) not to put it on. I promised I would not, and didn't. I put it back on the hat rack at home (my rice-cooker) and, angry with myself for offending a craftsman, have not repeated the mistake since.

Yet it seems to me that there is an understanding between us. He accepts me as a foreign customer with special needs, and I accept him as the barber I entrust with the well-being and upkeep of my hair. I.e., he accepts me as an expat dummy who needs to have everything signed to him, and I accept him as a proud savant on whom my very self-image depends. I could be wrong, of course; it's likely that this rapport I mentioned in my thesis is purely one-sided.

But is it any less real for that?

Now excuse me, I have to go wash off the hairspray.