Marlies goes China

Published March 6th, 2007 by Mliesie

Changes, changes

My last day off today, before I am back to work again. An interesting last day off, as I feel I have been a brave woman today.

As I haven’t been to the hairdresser since I came to China, I guess my students thought it necessary when they saw me after Sprng Festival. Their mission today, was to get me a haircut. So they did, well…not by temselves ofcourse, but by the owner of the shop who only does VIP’s. Guess I am considered to be a VIP. Before me she worked on the local TV hostess, who I thought looked a bit like a poodle, and the local TV newsreader, who also had a very interesting hairdo. I was just a little bit worried, just a little bit, but I also have faith in my students. I was smart enough to have brought a picture to show what it used to be like and the lady said she would be able to do it (I would have said so, if I had been the owner…). So here we went: first my hair was washed and ofcourse there were all these student hairdressers and hairwashers looking at what would happen to a Westerner’s hair when it’s washed with Chinese shampoo….NOTHING….Off to the seat and again all these student hairdressers and hair washers and even regular passersby were watching how ‘the boss’ was going to handle that weird kind of hair. I wish I could have filmed it, it was quite hilarious and I had to convince the woman that I wanted it MUCH shorter, over and over again. Finally we were done and no tears had fallen from my eyes, student hairdresser number I don’t know was now allowed to dry my hair, bossy came back for the final touch and off I was with student hairwasher number ? to wash my hair again (good to get rid of the itching little hairs, they should do that back in Holland as well!). Don’t think I was ready yet, no way! Student hairdresser, boy number 3 I think was to dry my hair with a really happy smile on his face and ten boss lady showed up again for the real final touch…..the gel! Man, was she picky. It took her ages to get it into perfect shape, and believe me, there’s not much hair to put in shape anymore. Finally, finally, I could get up and pay 20 RMB. Pfaaah, 5 more because I got cut by the bosslady herself. For those of you interested in Dutch prices….2 euros. I thanked the lady very much and she got this big, bright smile on her face. HM said she had never done such a haircut on a westerner, such a short haircut, so she was a bit worried. Nothing to worry about as you can see from the picture. Yep, I survived my first haircut in China!

 By the way, we were led out the door by the full staff, all with a bright smile on their faces..

After this interesting experience some regular things to be done in town and then HM and LP swept me off to the new department store that recently opened its doors. They wanted to show me the supermarket there, as it has Western products; they shouldn’t have! It has real Swiss, Dutch and extra dark chocolate, cereal, Italian pasta and pasta sauce, even olive oil and many more things that are no good when you are depressed (hahaha). The pasta and sauce most intrigued HM and LP, as they have eaten homemade at my house before. I promised I would make some of the pasta and sauce available in the supermarket (hopefully they like my homemade sauce better!!). It was really weird seeing these products in a supermarket in Yulin instead of in a giant Carrefour or other big, posh supermarket in Kunming or Beijing. I wonder how long it will last….

So far for my last day of Spring Festival Holiday, time to get back to work!

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