Guest Blogger

A special treat - a blog from Jerry!

So here goes, my first blog entry:

I'd been overdue for a haircut, so instead of getting one from a "barber" who cuts hair from the side of the road (one of my colleagues did this for the equivalent of $.25, a buzz cut made with scissors and a straight-edge razor and no nicks), I went with the director of the office to his regular place.

The two of us walk in (after making sure we went thru the door marked for men) and my director goes to the first chair. There are stalls separated by 4 ft high brick walls, so I look around dumbly for a few seconds since I'm used to being told where to sit (as was the custom at my old $2.99 Vietnamese haircut shop in Houston) but the few others present were seated on chairs looking like chatty customers. Turns out they were the barbers. So my director tells me to sit down and a guy comes up, points at my head and I make a few gestures around my head. He takes out a pair of scissors, sprays my hair down, and snips away for the next 10 min. One weird bit was that he seemed to push my head with a little more force than was needed when he wanted me to tilt it to one side. I kept trying to look at him in the mirror to see if he looked angry (didn't work since I couldn't see clearly with my glasses off). He finishes off the edges with a straight-edge razor, just like the street guy.

But I opt for something I think the street guy doesn't offer: a head massage. He points at my head and said what sounds like "massage" and I think, "Why not? I've never had one before." I nod and he starts to massage my scalp, pulling my hair up, thumping my head as if playing a bongo with fists, and doing a weird pinching of my nose bridge along with stroking my forehead and rubbing my closed eyelids. What really surprises me is when he starts to massage the back of my neck and work down my spine. Next, he grabs my right arm and starts wringing it like a towel from my biceps to my wrist, then yanking on my fingers to pop the knuckles before finishing with a twisting of the arm behind my back and slapping my upper shoulder blade. During this time I'm wondering if he's going to do anything that's going to really hurt or if he's going to touch a part of me that I'll feel awkward about. He doesn't. He repeats this on my left arm. He finishs up back on my head with the massaging and bridge pinching stuff.

I was a little tired afterwards, but I felt pretty good: the crick in my neck that had been bothering me during the week was gone. So all in all, it was well worth the $2+. Without the head massage, it cost the equivalent of $1. I wonder how much something like that costs back in the States. Would the people at my old $2.99 place do it? Anyone ever had a barber do this to them?