^Two old shaving brushes and a plastic container holding the shaving cream.
Almost a year ago GX GARNERINGS featured a series about an old housing estate to be demolished, in which a post was written on an old Shanghainese barbershop to be closed down there. The post tells of some history about such shops and hairstyling in Hong Kong
Recently I have paid a visit to some local old shops of which one was a similar Shanghainese barbershop.
^The pricelist sets out the wide array of services and charges.
These shops are vanishing and doing a business which is understandably not good. They are mostly situated on the lower floors of the what we called Chinese tenement buildings built before the WWII. The clues of their existence are the pricelist boxes and signboards put right at the entrance of the buildings.
^The barbershop is called New East Asia Barber's, which was a trendy word in the earlier days of the British colonial history as the word "East Asia" was more or less a conceptual product of the world being centred on the British Empire. At that time, anything from Britain and the West was considered much superior.
As time wears on, these shops are no longer trendy. They are old. Their patrons are invariably grandpas and grandmas.
^This door is of the genuine 1950's style and cannot be found in a lot of places. The owner of the shop is going to sell it. What a luck for me to have captured it!
Talking about grandpas and grandmas, these old barbershops were originally men's club. Women were of a lesser regard in social status in the old days. When the ladies were finally allowed to be served, the seating arrangement still carried the stigma of discrimination, which is:
The men got the sofa seats while the ladies were seated on the less comfortable chairs. Services in an old Shanghainese barbershop are haircutting, shaving and grooming. For ladies, grooming includes using special powder to even out the wrinkles on their face.
To trim and cut beard, shaving cream is applied on a brush to the customer's hairy face:
The brief visit to the barber's was educational. It was made on a Saturday afternoon and the barbers were having a rest as there wasn't any customers. I chatted with them for a short while, knowing that the shop was over half a century old.
^ Another pricelist box right at the entrance door to the shop.
We greeted one and the other a good afternoon and off I went down the shabby stairs of the sort of rundown tenement building.
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