My last haircut was over a year ago. A year before that, I shaved my head. Saturday, I had my second haircut in as many years–with so few haircuts, I can justify going to a salon since I’d be spending more money getting regular haircuts. I had a horrible experience with a cheap barber in 2006, which is why I shaved my head. Now I shell out $50 per trip to make sure my hair never looks that awful again.
I went to a salon here in Germany that caters to the American community here, making an appointment with a German hairdresser on Friday for Saturday. My previous experience at a salon, my first experience, was an upscale establishment on King St. in Charleston, South Carolina. There, the woman chatted with me constantly while cutting, a trait that would usually annoy me, but she was pleasant enough that it was an enjoyable experience. It’s a thinly-veiled skill to put one at ease so as to let them do more things, charge more for those things, and milk a tip out of the customer. With full knowledge of this as I sat in the chair in front of the mirror, I let this take place.
This experience was different. Living here, I chalk differences up to cultural attitudes, which might be a fallacious way of looking at how things work. I’m constantly trying to put my finger on what the elusive German demeanor is, a task I find gratifying and annoying simultaneously. So went my experience with this hairdresser.
Comparing her to the Charlestonian at the salon last year, she was quiet, even when asking me how I wanted it cut. She only spoke when showing me the back of my head in the mirror, asking if it was short or long enough, or when asking where I part and how I dry my hair. I braced for having to talk constantly, as I did last year, so this was somewhat relieving and relaxing, even as the middle-aged American women in the rest of the salon chattered constantly about nonsense. I could see one woman in the mirror talking at length about one woman who came in yesterday and was going back to the States soon. I sat in bemused silence, blurred vision without my glasses, glancing at the picks sticking out of my head in all directions. I was terribly out of place here, but it didn’t really matter. My overall attitude may have had something to do with hairdresser washing my hair beforehand.
It was a good haircut, and I tipped well. «»
