Time is running out

I mentioned a year ago (indeed, OMG chose this post as her pick for my Review of the Year over Christmas) the Chinese superstion that it is bad luck to get your hair cut during the first month of the new year in their lunar calendar (I think it's only supposed to be bad luck for men, but the ladies seem to jump on the bandwagon too). This tends to mean that there is an unholy rush on the hairdressers in the last week or two before the Chinese New Year holiday, i.e. NOW.

It's not quite as bad as the rush after the holiday, when it finally becomes auspicious to get your hair cut again; but it is pretty bloody bad. Every day for the last 4 or 5 days, I've looked in at my favoured local hairdressers' shop and found a gaggle of people waiting glumly for a chair (given the inordinate length of time it takes a Chinese hairdresser to do even the simplest cut - 25-30 minutes minimum, even without any 'specials' like dyeing or shaping, even without the almost obligatory pre- and post-cut wash - if there's anybody in the shop still waiting for attention, you can figure that you're likely to be kept hanging around for at least an hour, maybe two; I just can't be doing with that!). Things are always bad over the weekends; and I anticipated that things would be especially bad on this last weekend before the holidays. But even on a weekday, at a usually non-peak time (just after lunch), it seems to be the same story.

Have I really left it too late? If I can't manage to get my hair cut in the next day or two, it's likely that all the hairdressers will have quit the city to return to their provincial home towns for the holidays. And it's then likely to be another 6 weeks before it will be possible to get a haircut again!

It's been 5 or 6 weeks since my last cut, and my hair is uncomfortably shaggy. I just can't let it go very much longer. I think I'll have to try to get down to the hairdressers first thing tomorrow morning, to try to beat the queues.

And if that fails, I may have to dig out my own electric clippers - and GO SKINHEAD.

I used to think this Spring Festival 'no haircuts' tradition was rather quaint; but now it's rapidly starting to piss me off.