2004-10-04 - 7:06 pm

Mike went to get his hair cut yesterday and it was insane! The guy did not speak a word of English and mike just wanted his hair cut short. he kept making a motion with his fingers across his head, and the guy kept nodding like he understood, but kept talking in Chinese. People tend to think (across all languages- i am absolutely convinced of this) that if you talk reeeeaaaallllyyy slow and keep repeating yourself that eventually the other party will understand you.( I, on the other hand, am a fan of the "touch- the -person- enough -and- they -will- understand- method") that only works if you happen to be exceptionally good at charades. anyway, no one in this salon had a degree in charades. they sat mike down in a chair, and started cutting. Within 2 minutes, there was a crowd of people around him. I was sitting pretty far away and I couldn't see what was happening. Everyone in the crowd started laughing, and I thought, oh my god, they've maimed him somehow and think americans bleeding are really funny! I got closer and it turns out that they found a haridresser who spoke English and they were asking mike a gazillion questions. whatever he answered was funny stuff i guess. they said they liked his american girlfriend (me) and asked him if he liked Chinese girls. Not understanding the question, he said, I guess, and they said, we would like your american girlfriend and we wil find you chinese girlfriend. mike politely declined, but they all got a big hearty laugh out of it. mike's hair is really short to begin with but his haircut took 45 minutes! they kept cutting the same parts over and over again, all the while asking him about the US, what he's doing here, blah blah blah....mike figured out they were only cutting so much because they liked talking to him so much, so he had to tell the hairdresser that his lovely haircut was finished.(i wonder how they would treat a celebrity? i bet they cut each hair individually !) By this time there were probably 7 or 8 guys crowded around him. I thought, okay this was weird, but it wasn't over--they wanted PICTURES! they whipped out cameras and took turns posing with him. I took a picture of the picture-taking mayhem--i'll try to get them loaded on this site later. i just got a haircut before we got here, but I'm going tomorrow. Knowing my luck, they'll cut my hair blindfolded in a back room reserved for people they hate. mike is charmed, i'm convinced. I will get back to yall tomorrow and let you know if I got the same treatment....

?lt;/P>

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