An Intricate Hair Cutting Experience.

Janice, my friend - who’s a volunteer in Kralang, about 50k west of the town I live in, has quickly become my shopping buddy in town as neither of the boys can spend NEARLY as much time in all the markets just looking around at everything the vendors have to offer as we can. Will claims that we shop together so that we can justify what he claims to be our many unnecessary purchases. Maybe it’s true? But I won’t comment on that now. I guess girls just like to shop together and I don’t think there’s any harm in that.

Anyhow on Sunday at about 3:00 in the afternoon we were shopped out (we did start at 9am) – and we had a little time to kill before the concert we were going to that evening. We weren’t quite ready to go home so we decided to both treat ourselves to a haircut.

We went to the Lucky Mall (it’s the brand new mall in Siem Reap, it even has escalators) and went to the upstairs department store – which is really nice. I suppose it’s where all the rich people in the country, go to buy their clothes; as items there were very much out of my reach, even if I were stateside – but I suppose maybe a lot of the stuff is geared towards foreign tourists too.

Anyway – the department store is really nice. It’s fully air-conditioned … maybe almost a little too cold. It’s decorated in all white, with bright lights and white tile, and sparkling clean floors. We both almost felt like we were literally too dirty to be walking around in there. (It’s easy to get dirty just by walking and biking around town, when sweating and all the dust floating around sticks to ya). Janice commented on how being inside of this place that was decorated so perfectly and white made it feel like we had died and gone to heaven. I guess it did sort of have that aura, especially since our everyday lives DEFINITELY do NOT have that feel.

Anyhow we walked over to the salon where they had a list of all the different things you could get done and their prices. (Keep in mind a haircut at the local market is about $1 - $2). Haircuts here ranged from $6-8, a wash and blow dry was another $6 – and the list went on up if you were getting a color, or perm, or manicure/pedicure etc.

We decided what the heck, we were in town and thought we’d treat ourselves. I hadn’t had a haircut since I left – and the last haircut I had was super short with many layers; and I thought I’d get it all evened out as I want to grow it out.

Side note: I thought that having short hair was a good idea before coming here. It WAS until I realized how much I sweat on a regular basis, and that my hair never really dried during the day and it’d be nice if I could just put it back in a pony tail. – I’ve learned that now – and this haircut may be one of the last ones I get in a long time, because I can’t wait for it to be long! Anyhoo….

I asked to get a wash and a cut. So I went in, sat in my chair and then the woman in charge of washing hair came over.

This was the longest wash at a salon I’ve ever experienced. It started out with a full scalp massage which lasted about 10 minutes. Then she brought me over to the sink to wash and condition. Yet more massaging took place there. Then when I went back to my chair she continued to massage my scalp and then neck and shoulders. It was amazing, and TOTALLY worth it!

During that time, I was watching the head stylist of the salon trim the hair of another customer. She is good. She is precise. I think she knows what she’s doing pretty darn well.

Finally it was my turn. I told her that I just wanted to even everything out – because I want to grow it long. Maybe a slight angled bob with longer hair in the front, but overall pretty even.

She said okay.

Then the next 30 minutes I sat in silence while she eyed up every strand that she took to cut. It was kind of fun to watch her work. You could tell she took her profession very seriously; and that she gives a good hair cut every time. She worked with her hands so carefully. She is an artist.

Finally after every perfect snip had been done, she got around to getting the blow dryer out and drying it. Again here – she was VERY precise. She went all around several times with her round brush, holding the blow dryer in certain angles to get the hair to fluff up and straighten and curl in all the exact places. During this 15 of minutes of time – I was having the internal battle of: a) enjoying the fact that this woman is doing such a wonderful job on my hair – and b) wanting to tell her not to worry about it too much because as soon as she was done, I was going to have to go outside into the heat, and put on my bicycle helmet which will smash it all down again as I ride home. I decided to go with option B and watch her work and enjoy the fact that she was doing such a wonderful job.

I swear the woman only said 2 things to me over the 1 hour and 15 minute time period. I suppose it’s best not to interrupt her concentration. She was very into her work.

Towards the end of the blow-drying session, she took my parted hair that I originally parted, and then took more hair from the left side to make more of a side sweep angled part. And then in a very soft, gentle, feminine voice with an accent she said, “Maybe, this the style.” I sort of chuckled inside, not to laugh at her but,…………… because she took her work so seriously – and had the very stereotypical Asian voice with broken English suggesting to me what the current trend and fashion was is in hair nowadays. I replied with an assuring, “Yes! Sure!” So she went on her way parting it perfectly and blow drying it just a little more dramatically to the side.

After she had finished her masterpiece….and had every hair in perfect place, she asked me in her same gentle, quiet, calm and feminine but confident voice, “You like spray?” I said, “Sure” – and she put a plastic protector thing in front of my face while she put hair-spray in my hair. Even her moves while putting in the hair spray were so delicate, yet precise. Carefully spraying right in the perfect spots to make sure her finished product would stay in place.

After that, she handed me the hand-mirror. She spun the chair around, I looked at the back and side profiles, and said, “Thank you! I like it very much!” She said, “you’re welcome.”

And that was that.

I went up to the counter, paid and walked out the door, out of the department store and over to my bike which I had locked to a tree. I unlocked it, grabbed my helmet, then sighed as I slid it onto my head and biked home in time to get ready for the concert.