There is really nothing quite like a Southeast Asian barbershop on a Sunday.
There’s a faint hint of barbasol and aqua velva or some equally horrid aftershave in the air. Sex Panther perhaps.
Rusty barbers chairs covered in puke green olive drab vinyl. Linoleum floors once white, curled up around the walls and yellowed with age. Cracked and faded pictures pasted to the wall of smart Asian men in cheap western suits that look like they were cut out of newspapers 40 years ago. Music that sucked 30 years ago on the one-speaker analog clock radio in the window. The combined experience feels like a museum attraction that comes with a complementary haircut and shave.
Some might find this repulsive, but I found it hit a nostalgic nerve in my collective subconscious. I wondered if my Uncle had come to a place like this to have his hair cut while he was in Vietnam. It occured to me that westerners probably brought electric razors to the region. Maybe.
This GI knows what I'm talking about..
It then occurred to me that I had no idea when we first had electric razors in America, and my knowledge of Asian history/development is based loosely on jumbled images from Vietnam movies and overdubbed Kung-fu flicks. I finally decided that they probably DID have electric razors back then, but only for rich people… that really wanted a shaved head. Or a sweet fade. It always amuses me what my mind comes up with when I cut it some slack and leave it to it’s own devices.
I got a respectable trim for 30 baht. Not that you can really fuck up shaving someone’s head, but the guy spent about 15 minutes on something that takes me 5 when I do it myself. The attention to detail for such a simple task with a price tag of less than a dollar was genuine and refreshing.
I decided to cough up an additional 10 baht for a straight razor shave, mostly because it came with the added bonus of making me feel like a gruff gunslinger. I can’t see a straight razor and not think of that scene from high plains drifter.
I tipped the guy 10 baht and hurried home to wash the lingering smell of sex panther off of my neck and face.
