Picture this:

I walk into a space with faint snipping, razor buzzing, taps running, exclusive of conversation. Cheezy music, ranging from country to elevator music also fill the room as i peer around at the faux hard wood floor, jade green lights and counters and bubble tea advertisements. Stylists, all with wildfire red, red-orange or blonde hair are quietly working or on their way outside with a cigarette hanging from their mouths. I smile.

"Now THIS is the fob salon that i've been waiting for!"

Welcome to Robb's FoB salon experience. It was quite a learning experience. Read on....

***
One of the employees approach me.

"a!!s~kdfj`alkj tp@es l@azen, la?" A girl demands, with a bit of edge.

"Sorry, I'm English." Wow, I don't think i've ever said something like that before. I should have said "sorry, i only speak english", but basically i said to her "Sorry, i'm a total white wash banana. Please spare the ridicule and speak the guai low's (white devil's) language for me, if you could please."

She takes me up and we converse. I tell her that I had an appt. with a guy named "Phillip" and i meet him. It was strange, b/c the older bleach blond stylist was on he way out for a smoke break, while the wildfire red female took me to the chair and started suiting me up and sitting me down on the salon chair.

hmmm...

I began to start conversation with her. You know how it is, at salons it's all about the converastion with the hair stylist. They're usually big talkers who enjoy talking with their customers. BUt this time, it was like pulling teeth.

"Hi there, how are you"

"aaa?"

"how are you?"

"oh. good."

"So, have you been here long?"

"Oh, about one year."

"cool."

Silence. She takes a clear bottle that looked like a ketchup container you would see at a hotdog stand and covers my head with a clear liquid. She begins to work it through my hair, and suddenly the liquid foams up. She was washing my hair while i sat in the chair!! I tried a few other times to spark up conversation, but they all ended in one-line dead answers. She then suggested to look at a few magazines.. that was my cue to shut the fuck up. I also looked around, and realized that noone was talking at all; they were reading a chinese magazine or just sitting there and looking at the stylist cutting.

It was a crazy lathering process. I was there awhile, and it also involved a mini neck and shoulder massage too! Crazy. The massage was quite rough though, which i wasn't expecting! :)

After we went to the taps where she washed off my hair, treating my head like it was a dog and when i sat back down Phillip was there... So now i get it, we have the assistant hair grunts that just wash the hair. Cool. I meet with Phillip, tell him what I want, and he begins to cut. Again, it was like pulling teeth to have conversation, and it seemed like it was distracting him a bit, so i shut up. Ah well. It was actually nice though, b/c sometimes when you're at a salon and you and your stylist have a silence, it can get a bit uncomfortable. Not here. It was a comfortable silence, which is something that is hard to come by and something that I really really appreciate when it genuinely happens.

Anyway, he did a great job. He did basically what i asked, and used some cool techniques (even the Nike Arrajo razor on the hair technique) and really took my head seriously. He was totally in the zone. When he was texturizing and thinning my hair, after each razor cut he looked like he was a kung fu sensai -quietly kicking- (i.e. not the loud stereotypical "AHHH YA!!") for a demonstration for karate class.. '"..aa ya.. a yah".

One thing that I really liked was that after he finished, the wash wench came back and re-washed my hair. It has always been a bit annoying after a haircut becuase you konw that all the little bitty pieces lodged in your hair, especially b/c the back of my hair is super short, that are left after your hair is styled. So after another wash, i came back to Phillip and he styled it. Great! I don't need to rewash my hair when I get home. When it was all done, he got my coat and helped me put it in, as if i was royalty :). What a crazy time!

Oops, did i do it again? A Question...There was a really nice girl beside me who was getting her hair coloured a deep gothic red. It looked really good, and i commented on it. Now, to you girls (and observant guys), I must ask: If a guy walks by at a salon and says, "Hey, that looks really wicked! i love the colour," and smiles, would you think that he likes you? I know that sometimes i just forget what i'm doing, and realize what mind games i've just committed later. I said that comment right after I got my hair washed the 2nd time, walking back to get my hair styled. After my comment, i caught her staring at me (i could tell from the reflection of the mirror in my perpherial vision), and when i looked over to her i -think- i saw her do a mini smile and quickly went back to her chinese magazine. That's when i thought, "oh man.. does he like me?"..

Man.. if things were different, life would be so much easier! boom! i could have probably asked her out right then and there. She was a really sweet and hot asian girl (now with wicked hair), i must say too! heh :)

Final Thoughts from Jerry Springer... What a great experience. What they lacked in social skills they gained in additional services. Who gets an in-chair wash, neck&shoulder massage, 2 washes, deeply focused and quite talented stylist (with multiple texturizing, shaping and razoring techniques) for $21? So what if the social skills arelacking -- clearly he understood the cut i wanted, and followed my directions, and that's the most imporant thing to communicate.

And from my experience, that's the culture anyway. The downtown working chinese culture is much more harsh and abrupt, and often it can be misinterpreted as really rude and bitchy. I think it's b/c us people from the white world are used to and expect being treated like kings and queens at any store, whether it be buying clothes at the bay or buying bagels. I also realized that i was the conversationalist of the bunch. I've always thought of myself being a bit more quiet... but in the asian culture, i was the talkative one. I don't mean that Asian's don't talk much (since we know how talkative little asian girls can be w/each other). I'm talking about how the Asian culture is with strangers and in public.

It was quite a good time, i must say. I would post a picture of my fresh cut, but alas, i don't have a digital camera :(. When i do, i'll try and post it.

Take care,

RE

"eat drink and be merry"