Cutting haircuts
X user/digital nomad JuanSanchez on haircuts:
Haircuts around the world from a dude who got cuts in 50 countries.
You don't speak the language, what do you do in a foreign country at the barber?
Step 1: show them a picture of you with the hair you want.
Step 2: they give you the 'local special' haircut anyway.
You're going to get the local haircut, so just accept it. You can either only get your haircut in places you like the hairstyles, or you can be an ogre until that point. My female can grow her hair out. I go between looking like an ogre or a retarded local.
Other terrible haircuts are in fancy places that require washing. Fuck you, I'm autistic and I don't like my head touched. I'll give you money NOT to massage my head. This is actual torture to me but I look insane with my long hair and nothing else is open so I'm getting my hair cut in a salon.
Barbers outside the US are career focused. This is what they do, and they do it well. Barbers inside the US are mentally unstable individuals with sharp objects. Just nod, smile, tip, and get the hell out of there.
Once upon a time, I too got haircuts. Now I do not. Some say it's because I can't grow hair, but that's not the entire story.
Back before I regularly shaved my head, I disliked longer-than-very-short hair because mine would curl on the edges and get uncomfortable. Because of this, I was getting frequent haircuts every other week. It was annoying and time-consuming.
And when I lived in Guangzhou ~15 years ago, they found a way to make it more time-consuming. They would insist that I get a wash and head massage. Even after agreeing not to...because it was all the rage. While, unlike Mr. Sanchez, I appreciate a good head massage and wash, I hated being forced to do it when all i wanted was my hair trimmed so the edges would stop itching.
At some point I got tired of arguing with them and mad at the massive waste of time caused by my weekly or biweekly trim + involuntary wash/massage and solved it by shaving my own head instead, cutting barbers out of my life permanently.
In the interests of transparency (like the hair at the time on the top of my head), my hair was also starting to thin, so this not also saved time & money but also solved that unattractive problem.
Best barber: my childhood US barber Sam Vella who was an Italian immigrant in his 60s or 70s. For the two decades I went to him, I could barely understand what he said but boy did he have a lot to say! Best conversations ever.
It broke my heart when he retired at age 80 and sold the barbershop to a young guy a couple of years older than me. I was uncomfortable around the new proprietor and his sharp objects and solved that problem by moving away from the country forever.
Sam's old barber shop is now the Vape & Tobacco shop or perhaps a "Jewelry & Coin Exchange" (whatever the heck that is...a pawn shop?) in a depressing, trashy strip mall that has clearly seen better days enveloped by air that looks like it belongs in early 2000s Beijing. (Wtf is going on in suburban Ohio??)
While writing this, I learned that Sam passed away 5 years ago at the ripe old age of 95. I didn't know much about his personal life while I was a customer, but I am not surprised to find out that he was as good at life as he was at cutting hair. He was happily married for 69 years, and like a gentleman, let his wife pass first. His lasting legacy: two children, three grandchildren and six great-grandchildren and our collective memories of all the great haircuts. You are missed, Sam! Rest in peace!
