Very funny experience in China

This is one of the things that can scar most people and scare them for the rest of their lives, getting a bad haircut. And this kind of happened to me and also one of my closest friends at the time. Now that we think back to it, we can’t help but burst out laughing at the experience.

So basically at the time my hair was getting really long and messy after not cutting it for at least 2 months, I usually have medium length in general with my sides shorter with the ability to brush my hair back as this was the trendiest cut at the time. So as my Chinese wasn’t great I was petrified of going to the hairdressers myself as I really didn’t want to come out with no hair just in case I communicated the wrong thing to them, so I then asked my friend who was fluent in Chinese to help and he suggested one of the local places where he’d been a few times to get his haircut, bear in mind he’s African and has short hair.

Anyway it was a cold winter’s day and we went over to this place, he said I’d be fine as he could tell them exactly what I wanted, I showed a picture as well, as that’s one of the best ways to show exactly what you want. So we started off and my friend told him the style that I wanted, so I sat back and tried to relax as he started, he cut the sides and back perfectly fine, no problem at all, and then he started on the top, I simply kept giving my friend the evil stare as he kept smirking and having little smiles and I decided I wasn’t looking at whatever was unfolding in front of my eyes. The hairdresser asked if everything was okay and I just told him to carry on and I closed my eyes.

When he was progressing, it took a pretty long time and he was moving my hair about sideways and in all kinds of directions, and I thought it was just because he was seeing where to cut properly, as I still had a heck of a lot of hair on my head, the sides were nearly bald, and then he just stopped. I opened my eyes and all he had done was tidy up the top of my hair, not cut any off it, but cut all of the sides and back of my hair really short, so I looked like I had a squirrel on my head. I looked at the mirror and just went bright red, I blamed it that I was hot. I just looked at my friend and he couldn’t react or say anything as he was laughing so much he was nearly on the floor, he was trying his best to hide it but his laughter shocked the whole shop. To be honest the guy had done a really good job, if I was used to the Chinese style, it would have looked good on a Chinese person’s face, but my white face really didn’t suit it, I thought don’t worry and thanked him, got up and told my friend to sit down as he apparently wanted to have a quick trim whilst we were there.

My friend sat down, and then his smiling face soon turned to nerves as he realized that he was laughing at the haircut place that he was too about to have his own haircut. He sat down and the guy approached him with a razor and my friend quickly pushed him away and told him exactly what he wanted, just a trim, not a complete shave, his hair was maybe half an inch thick and he just wanted a little trim, definitely not bald. He was really nervous and each time someone touched his hair he flinched and was ready to throw them off.

Throughout the process as he was getting his haircut, I have never laughed so much in my life, the guy was a mess, the hairdresser proceeded to not use any guides and just shaved a big rectangle line down the side of his head by mistake, as the guy was new, completely destroying the hair lines that my friend had, he looked like he was about to cry as he was really proud of his hair. When this happened my friend let out a really girly scream which sent me into hysterics, I couldn’t stop laughing and neither could everyone else in the shop, even my friend. This definite nervous laughter soon turned into actual nerves and he almost go up and left halfway through the haircut, but he braved on, the hairdresser’s had cut his hair way too short to start off with so there was no going back, they had to do the rest, but this time they cut it as long as possible (if that made sense). With a few screams here and there and a few phrases of saying if you cut my hair bad my girlfriend’s going to kill you, he was soon finished, he opened his eyes and he looked like a completely new man, a brand new bald man. Everyone in the shop came over to try and help in any way, 4 people tried their best to shave the hair lines into his hair to try and give his head some sort of finish line, my friend even had a go at it himself, as even with his fluent Chinese they didn’t get the message all the way through.

When they’d finished he was more laughing and joking than upset, he wasn’t really that bothered about it, I told him he can grow it out, all haircuts look strange when they’re new (as I proceeded to point at my own hair), we both walked out of the hairdressers with our hoods up, and he quickly told me that he was really cold as all of his hair was gone, we couldn’t stop laughing and agreed to never go to the hairdressers again with each other as we were bad for each other in those kind of situations.

For more funny experience in China, please check www.studyinchina.hzlearning.com under beginner's guide. 

Or you could just scan the following QR code via wechat.