Wan Chai for Memory

My nursemaid Gaga called me at 8 in the morning to remind me about yumcha with her at 9. As I brushed my teeth, my waxed hair stuck out like a sea urchin and refused to go down. Boy, I need a haircut today. I got down to Gaga's place in Wan Chai around 8:30AM and took her to dimsum. Gaga is 84 this year and she has a tendency to repeat herself over and over again. Every year I saw her for the last 10 years, she always told me the same thing, "I want to die. But I'm still alive."

Gaga raised me from birth until I was 15. I tried to take her out for early dimsum at least once every time I came back... it was usually the only time I could catch her. She plays mahjong all day in the afternoon and goes to sleep early.

After dimsum, I took Gaga back home and decided to try out this salon I passed by near the Wan Chai market. There were salons all over Wan Chai but for some reason was so intrigued by the decoration of this salon since I passed by it a week ago.

On the walk over, I passed by the old Imperial Theater where I had watched many movies growing up.

Imperial used to have only one house in the 70s and it got remodeled in the 80s and became a triplex. At the end, it closed down after all in the late 90s. Imperial was in fact the only movie theater that I could walk to from where I used to live in Hong Kong. Wan Chai was my connecting point with the world as a kid. I was a Wan Chai boy.

My parents took me to Imperial for many movies, and I particularly remember watching David Lynch's Dunewith my dad who found the movie totally puzzling. In the version we saw, the HK distributor had at least edited at least half an hour out of the original cut.

Imperial also used to play porn movies for their early morning shows. I remember a few of my classmates were caught watching porn films at Imperial during my high school years in Hong Kong. It's sad that Wan Chai area now has no cinemas at all.

As I sauntered through the street next the Wan Chai market, I remembered how I would follow Gaga to buy grocery when I was six/seven years old. She knew I hated walking through the market, so she would take me to a tofu shop for a bowl of sweet tofu. The tofu shop was the highlight of the otherwise unpleasant shopping trip, but the tofu shop was no longer there.

I finally got to the salon which still had a closed sign on the door. I wondered if I should go in. I checked their prices and the prices of another salon two doors down. I debated if I could make the right choice by going into a salon solely because I loved the black and gold gothic decoration inside. Well, haircut is styling, right? And the decoration of the store is certainly part of styling.

I walked in to Studio X where the assistant showed me a price list for haircut & shampoo. He asked me to pick from $130, $170 & $230 hairstylist. I asked him if there was any difference between the three prices, and he said it was only the price. So I tried the $130 stylist. The assistant gave me a really nice shampoo and massage until the hairstylist showed up.

The hairstylist was a tomboyish young lady and I immediately felt at ease with her. I tended to like dyky women... and I wondered if she could indeed be a dyke. She asked me how I wanted to cut my hair, and I said a little shorter, thinner on the side and some banks. She pointed to her hair and asked, "You mean like this?"

"Kind of," I said. And she started cutting. As she was cutting my hair, I felt more at ease. Still, I wondered how my $130 haircut would turn out.

I got to say she did a fantastic job. I've rarely had a good haircut in Hong Kong as I usually felt like I had to grow into a new haircut. But this time, I felt it looked good right after the cut. As I was leaving, two more clients came in, a South Asian lady and a Caucasian lady. Foriegners seemed to like this place.

So I definitely recommend Studio X at 257 Queen's Road East, Wan Chai, right across from the Wan Chai market. 2834 0381.