Chang Chen-chin (張真金) has his pride. “For forty years, high-ranking officials, VIPs, tycoons, movie stars, they’ve all put their heads in my hands,” he says. “I’ve turned down quite a few politicians, mind you. They’re so corrupt. I don’t like them or their heads.” He jerks his chin up, continuing to talk while he snips away at a customer’s nasal hair. But he knows his place. “Touch my head, touch my hands,” he says, quoting a children’s rhyme in his lilting Shanghai accent, “and you’ll know straightaway that I’m a barber and that’s my fate—no work, no food.”
Chang, whose nickname is Blackie, has a dark complexion, talks in a loud voice, and chews betel nut. He is a large man with very fine hands and he is the proprietor of the Shanghai Red Rose Barbershop, which has been going strong in the Hsimenting district of old Taipei for thirty years. He prides himself on being the last real traditional Shanghai barber in Taiwan.
What is the magic of Shanghai in this context? Well, half a century ago it was the most fashion-conscious city in China, setting all the trends. Red Rose comes into the picture because of a hairstyle that was popular in the forties, when men used to have the hair on their foreheads permed into the shape of a rose. When the ROC took over Taiwan from the Japanese in 1945, many Shanghai barbers came to the island, bringing their craftsmanship with them.
Chang was just seventeen then, and anxious to try his luck in the big city. He came up to Taipei from Nantou county on a small train that the Japanese had originally designed to carry sugar cane and was lucky enough to find an apprenticeship with one of the Shanghai barbers. “In those days, a teacher was like a father,” Chang says. “Ours provided us with food and shelter. We didn’t earn anything, though, and he taught us only when he felt like it. We spent the rest of the time doing all kinds of chores.”
Those were hard times. Chang recalls that he had to get up at two o’clock in the morning to mop the floor, wash spittoons, and fluff towels. His hands were often covered with blisters. But there were fun times, too. Chang laughs as he describes how he would grab vagrants from off the street to serve as guinea pigs. Those vagrants came into the shop dirty, ragged and smelly, and walked out with a fashionable, perfumed hairdos. The results were not, perhaps, first-class, but they were certainly good enough for people who had no money.
There were a few scary times, too. When Chang first started, there were no electric razors. He had to shave customers with a straight razor that he had first stropped on a leather belt. He drew blood several times. Chang was usually for given. “Most of them were so placid,” Chang says, his voice betraying a certain relief.
But not every customer was so patient. “Several high-ranking officials, I won’t name names, were very mean,” Chang recalls. “If the hair dryer’s electric cord so much as touched them, they’d get angry. If the water was a little bit too hot or too cold, they’d get angry. Could I slap them around? No, I just had to put up with them.” But pleasant customers did get their just deserts. Chang has his own personal little phrase to describe his hands—“heavy with lard and cinnamon,” or capable of bringing good luck to people he likes, in those words. “Many of my old regulars have risen from lowly employee to boss,” he says, proudly displaying his hands.
Chang Chen-chin—“Touch my head, touch my hands, and you’ll know straightaway that I’m a barber and that’s my fate—no work, no food.”
Take K.K. Su, for example. This gentleman has been coming to Chang’s barbershop for the past thirty years. He started as a bank clerk but, no doubt blessed by Chang’s “lard and cinnamon hands,” he is now a branch manager. He recalls a time when there was no air conditioning and hair was permed with evil-smelling chemicals that warmed the skin to an uncomfortable degree. He says it is impossible to describe how hot a barbershop could get in those days. The only way of keeping a customer cool was by means of a punkah-style fan, a piece of cloth suspended above his head and swung to and fro by an apprentice.
Asked why he thinks the Shanghai Red Rose Barbershop has survived for so long, K.K. Su notes that other establishments tend to apply too much hair spray or pomade. “Every time I get a trim in those places, it’s like I’m wearing a wig,” he says. “It looks so unnatural, as if I’m a newly shorn sheep. But here the barbers only use scissors, and they use them skillfully and efficiently. They style the hair naturally. I don’t have to comb or blow-dry it much.” Chang Chen-chin adds that his team is especially well trained in scissor technique. “We call this movement ‘swaying scissors,’” he explains, demonstrating. “The barber has to keep his arm still, just moving the wrist.”
K.K. Su also likes the look of the Shanghai Red Rose. It has always had a big front window—clean, transparent, and welcoming. “Other barbershops look so dark from the outside,” he comments. “I often wonder what shady dealings are going on in there.”
The shop has consistently emphasized its traditional tonsorial skills. But it has also kept pace with the times, adapting old hairstyles to keep abreast of fashion. Crew cuts, pompadours, and the so-called “airplane” style (hair combed straight back and heavily oiled) have all come and gone. The latest fad hairstyle is called an “iron perm.” The hair is first cut very short. Then the stylist perms it bit by bit with an electric curling iron. The iron is steaming hot, but since it does not touch the skin the customer experiences minimal discomfort. The hairstylist next molds the permed hair, controlling the overall shape. Chang’s own iron perm, for example, is parted down the middle. The hair takes about twenty minutes to become curly. “You won’t have to comb your hair ever again,” Chang enthuses. “You can wash your hair ten times a day without using a dryer, and it will still keep its shape.”
Many of the Shanghai Red Rose’s loyal customers are growing old, and there are comparatively few young ones to take their places. “Times have changed,” Chang sighs. “It’s not just the customers, either. Today’s apprentices don’t have to work like we did, yet they’re so lazy. They’ve got no respect for their teachers. They just want to get what they can from us and then go away and start up their own shops.” One block away is a recently opened establishment called the Taipei Red Rose Barbershop, which prominently features “iron perms” in its advertisements. That shop is owned by one of Chang’s former apprentices.
“I don't care about them stealing my customers,”Chang says.“Because frankly I don't think they can. I never advertise. Customers come to me because they know I'm good. What worries me is that young barbers nowadays blindly follow every which fashion. They don't have any real, solid expertise. I'm afraid that the skills we Shanghai barbers pass on are like wooden flip-flops, bamboo chairs, and shoe repairmendoomed."