Glutton for punishment!

Good evening blog readers. Another special treat for me today ... getting to write the blog .... and the fact I am allowed to write this does indeed mean that I have been to the hairdressers again!!

Now I know what you are all thinking, ‘Not another boring tale where he drips on about a trip to the barbers’, and of course you are right, I mean what could have happened this time that didn’t happen last time? So in order to counter the possibility that the lovely, but cunning, JLT-B is only allowing me to blog after going to the hairdressers, in order to turn me into the world’s dullest blogger (a title for which there is some pretty stiff competition out there ... I don’t know if you have read any of the German stuff! Btw, if you can, try to read it in the original German because sometimes the English translations can throw up some unintentional humour)! Anyway back to what I was saying, in order to counter Jo’s cunning plan I decided to couple my step back into the 80’s, more commonly known as a trip to a Chinese coiffing salon, with a foot massage! This idea has legs people, as long as I do something else bloggable during my trips to the salon I can keep them interesting! (For those of you who have already lost the will to read this I apologise for my misplaced optimism).

So to begin .....

I tucked William up in bed and bid all adieu as I set off on my grand adventure. I decided I would go to the foot massage place first, Lotus Foot Massage, on account of it being further away. So I jumped into a cab and realised I didn’t know the name of the road because the card is all in Chinese. Now, it’s been a while since I had to communicate with a cabbie by showing him written instructions, and frankly I didn’t want to return to the dark old days, so I told him to drive and attempted to give directions to the place I had been to once before! Now as it turns out I did know exactly where this place was, but the pressure of the situation meant that the pronunciation differences between turn left here, and the slightly different though importantly so, turn right here, weren’t too clear. That and obviously the cabbie was probably not very good at Chinese either!!

Still for just a few kwai more (a kung fu version of a Clint Eastwood classic?) we arrived safely at the foot massage place, which looks dodgy as can be. Now I should explain here, that the first time I came to Lotus Foot Massage, my first thought was to carry on and find a ‘reputable’ establishment (there is even the glimmer of a pink blacklight). But this place was recommended to me by Joanna - who had already been, who in turn had been personally taken there by our landlady, so I had boldly gone in. Now back to the current time, and it seems the cabbie’s instincts were very similar to mine as he jovially waved whilst smiling a (not so) toothy grin at me with a knowing glint in his eye! Except he didn’t know ... and the Chinese for, ‘it’s not like that, my wife recommended it, it’s really good’ escaped me, so I just rose above it and went in.

Now there is something which makes this place different from the others, it has the feel of an American motel, but more specifically it reminds me of the Bates Motel. Hiding this thought in the back of my tiny little mind, I did the usual thing - I walked to the counter (always a good first move in these situations), and being unable to go into the details of what I would like, I named my price and let them decide what service I would get (this technique works quite well in places like this but you could come out of a market shop with little more than a paper clip and a bad taste in the mouth, if you adopt the technique there). So with a 1 hour foot massage ordered for 50RMB (about £4) I sat back in the chair and turned on the tv. Disappointed that they didn’t have satellite I started flicking through the Chinese channels, of which there are rather a lot. In the meantime my foot masseuse has entered with a big tub of water and puts it down in front of me and plops my feet in....to the hottest water I think it is humanly possible to stand. I don’t know at what temperature skin blisters and falls off limbs but the people in this place clearly do, and make sure that the water is 1 degree cooler than that, although they probably measure it by the number of red hot rocks they put in the water.

Now as I am trying to man it up, she chooses this point to interrogate me about the service, an incredibly cunning ploy as clearly all I can do is nod repeatedly while I fight through the pain barrier. Finally she finishes the ‘negotiaition’ and removes my feet from the tub of pain. She kindly bandages them up Egyptian style and I wonder if real damage has been done. I decide to go back to channel hopping, which I am finding frustrating because the batteries are going and clearly I can’t get up, so I find myself stuck on this particular channel for a while as it refuses to change when I suddenly realise this programme is worth more of my time. I could sum it up as a sort of Pop Idol programme, but it involves Kung Fu so it would probably be more aptly described as Kung Fu Idol. As I start watching, the 8 male hopefuls are tasked with doing kung fu moves to pop music, whilst a really, really, really camp Ant (Wong) and Dec (Li) make comments from the sidelines (which I suppose are the Chinese equivalent of ‘Shut that door’ and ‘Oooh I say’), and a fat guy (Les Dawson) who is clearly the comic element makes remarks and pulls faces all of which result in huge amounts of canned laughter. The audience meanwhile all wear white t-shirts with red writing on showing the phone number to ring in on.

Meanwhile a cup of hot water appears next to me with lots of flowers in it and a bowl with some sweets in wrappers. Now, looking at the ‘tea’ I was reminded of the foolishness in my youth when I ate pot pourri off my parents coffee table thinking it was an edible snack. Not wanting to repeat this embarrassing error in front of my masseuse, I decide to leave the tea rather than risk giving her a lifelong anecdote about the time a laowai drank the scented oil!

Back to the foot massage. Applying this much pressure to feet without snapping tendons or breaking bones is a real skill, and this lady clearly has all the skills in abundance. At this point she indicated that I should try the tasty treats they had brought in so I took a mouthful of flowers and tried to follow them with a sweet to take the taste away. Unfortunately the sweets turned out to be dates (I think), wrapped up like sweets to try to break my spirit. At this exact same moment she tested the breaking strain of my big toe. In times like these I always think of Jo who winces in pain if anyone coughs near her feet, and it gives me strength in the knowledge that it could be worse. You learn how many different sensitive points there are in your feet when someone cooks them just before rubbing their knuckles all around the different areas. But still it is good for you right? Or at least that’s what my masochistic public schoolboy alter ego tells me!

Well I can only describe the feeling of relief, I mean relaxation, as I am able to walk out of there an hour later and 65RMB poorer (I think I got charged 15RMB for the hot water with flowers in and a giant raisin although I don’t really know). As I was leaving the Kung Fu Idols were dancing with their favourite weapons. One chose a sword, one two swords, one a staff, one sticks on the end of strings etc, oh and one chose a fan!! For the record, if it ever comes down to it and I ever have to fight a man to the death and we get weapons, I am going to go for a gun and go against the guy who picks a fan.

Skip to the hair salon ....

As I enter the salon I get a big hearty smile and a hello as word goes round that the ‘neck guy’ is back. They sit me down and the first charade they run by me is whether I am having a shave again. Well not wanting it to seem like I can’t hack it I stupidly nod in the affirmative and all look pleased. Then they ask if I want it shampooing, massaging, .... oh and right at the end, almost as an after thought, she asks if I want a haircut too!

So obviously the routine is the same as before, although this time I asked for coffee so that I could withstand the procedure better. Sensing my new found strength they sent out the ‘heavy’ artillery and out cometh red shirt number 15, a heavy set Chinese girl who looks like she should only be agreed with, and only in a small voice then. Shampoo and head scratch - normal ( although this time I also benefitted from a weird kind of ear massage with the shampoo - and not just the lobes but the inside bits too), head rinse - normal although face towel seemed hotter (if that is even possible), massage was worse, this girl was not only more powerful but obviously studied her physics at school and knew all about levers and fulcrums - I actually screamed as she used the chair to try and remove my arms, although it did feel really good afterwards!

It was about this point, when the endorphins released by my brain on realising my arms hadn’t been wrenched off, led to a state of higher awareness (at least for me anyway) and I noticed the other customers’ hairdressers were wearing the ordinary red polo shirts as opposed having just come from an Adam Ant audition. I started to wonder why, when it came to my turn, they would insist on opening up a time capsule out back and then .... ‘cutting hair again tonight, for one time only ladies and gentlemen, Ian’s hairdresser is .... Simon Le Bonn’, and down the stairs and through the smoke he would come!

Anyway back to reality, I cunningly solicited a ‘break’, an apt term under the circumstances, by sending my would be assassin off for another coffee. Sure enough not to disappoint Midge Ure then enters the fray and gives me the most tentative haircut I have ever had, and before I realise he has started it dawns on me he is asking me if it’s ok and do I want it rinsing? I am astounded to look in the mirror to see that for someone who has done so little trimming he really has turned me into a grade A pillock (sorry mum), or at least even more of a pillock (see previous mum). Not wanting to be accused of being difficult, I assure him it is marvellous, and off I go for a rinse .... and my shave!

So I sit in the hair washing chair and they do the rinse, wet my face, rub on the cream, and cover my face in hot towels. After a couple of minutes a ninja comes in and peels back half of one towel and starts stroking my forehead. It’s only when the rest of the towel gets pulled down below my eyes that I realise what is happening and words fail me! Ladies and gentlemen I have just had a forehead shave! The bizarre-ness of the situation leads me to ponder the possible permutations in the misunderstandings which must have occurred for this situation to arise, when I suddenly become concerned that she may have shaved my eyebrows off!! Now that has happened to me once or twice before blog fans but never whilst I have been awake and completely compus mentis (although Joanna might like to mention at this juncture that I am never completely compus mentis). This quickly goes however as my bewilderment turns to the fact that she is now shaving my nose! Not wanting to excite the poor simpleton with the cut throat razor (which is sharp as sharp can be this time folks) I remain in an oasis of motionlessness, only for her to move on to my eyelids! Just as I start to wonder if Ant (Wong) and Dec (Li) are about to spring out with the cheeky fatman and I will appear on a future edition of Chinese comedy capers with a thought bubble coming out of my head saying something witty like ... ‘Aaaay up duck’ she starts to actually shave the area traditionally reserved for shaving (in the male of the species at least).

As soon as she finishes up I dash back to my chair before she tries to tell me she has only done my head, check my eyebrows (which I was strangely disappointed to see were still there after all) and get my blow dry. Midge has obviously either:

a) Got to be home by midnight before he changes into a pumpkin.
b) Or is refusing to accept responsibility for my haircut.

Because he is nowhere to be found and a new red shirt, 12 seen as you ask, does the blow dry. Now you kind of know a hair cut isn’t great when even the staff are laughing as it is done, and it is with such hilarity that I thank number 12 as I go to pay. The manager lady manages to rise above the situation and displays the seriousness of her job by barely managing to stifle her giggles as I give her the money. And it is with good humour that I leave the salon and trudge home, happy in the fact that it is a dark night, and nobody can see me .... until I get home!

Thanks Joanna xxx

PS. Photos have not been supplied to protect the ridiculous.

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