First Chinese Haircut

After rocking a mediocre bob from home for the past 5 months, I decided my hair needed a little sprucing up. I didn't want it much shorter, but I wanted a few more layers and to get the ends thinned out a bit. So I turned to my adorable and stylish student, Jessie, for some help.

She took me to a salon in the East Market, where she knows the assistant manager. He is the man in the white and black shirt who cut my hair. When we arrived, all the stations were full, and they were waiting for the water to heat up to wash people's hair. (You can see the water heaters near the ceiling.) They never did quite get working that day, but soon enough it was my turn to have my hair washed by the assistant.

Then I walked over to my guy's chair. Jessie told him what I wanted, and he spent about 30 minutes meticulously sectioning off my hair, thinning the ends, and fixing my bangs. Overall, he did a pretty good job. At one point, I asked if he could do something about a particularly annoying piece of hair that always wants to flip out. His solution? He suggested that we chemically straighten my hair. I was a little tempted, but decided that I couldn't live with a year of bad hair if it somehow got ruined. When he finished cutting, the guy just used a blow dryer and comb to style my hair. No product, no curling iron, no straightener. I don't even think they had used conditioner.

Of course, having a foreigner in the salon created a bit of a stir, since foreigners are few and far between in Qufu and don't often frequent the salons in the East Market. I could hear the customers and stylists asking Jessie questions about me (where I'm from, how old I am, what my job is, etc.), but my Chinese isn't good enough to catch everything they said. The girl next to me decided to request exactly the same haircut as me, requiring her to chop off about 8 inches of her hair!

The best part about my haircut? I got it washed, dried, cut, and styled all for the low, low price of 8 yuan. For a mere $1.20 a pop, I could go back every week!