Hair today - gone tomorrow

By Paula Taylor (JIN Magazine)
Updated: 2012-11-13

In every age and culture hair expresses some part of the person beneath it. I read a novel set in ancient Japan and one of the characters was described as having "hair that fell like liquid darkness to her knees". Because of poverty she had to cut it all off and sell it so that she could feed her children. Thereafter she was shamed and could not go out in public.

Men and women, whatever their nationality, over a lifetime usually spend considerable time and money on their hair. Women definitely have bad hair days, and our hair affects our moods. If our hair looks good it will naturally follow that our day will be successful. Men, wherever they are in the world mourn the loss of their hair when it starts to fall out. However bald men in the west are not looked down on, quite often they are viewed as being strong and virile. The first man to make baldness attractive was the actor Yul Brynner. In China men losing their hair is totally unacceptable and they go to great lengths to disguise it. I think once hair starts to go, the best thing to do is to keep it really short or shave it all off, but the men here do not like to do that. My friends think this is a sign of aging, but plenty of young men lose their hair. Apparently it is ok for westerners to have little or no hair, but not Chinese men.

Of course hair is important to us all, but for Asian people it really does seem to be more important, especially because for them its loss is only associated with aging or sickness. How do Chinese men cope when their hair starts to go? Rather than shave it off they will try to preserve it as best they can, hence in Tianjin many older men have what is commonly called the comb over, where the hair is grown long at the sides and then swept up on top and across to cover the bald spot. I really would like to tell them that it doesn't matter, that they won’t be judged on their hair, or lack of it, but of course whilst that is true in the west, it is not true here.

As usual I asked some Chinese friends for their thoughts. Ihad the following conversation with one friend.

Me:-"If you see a young guy who is losing his hair, what do you think?"

Friend:- "If he is young at first I will think that maybe he has some sickness and he can go to the doctor to get some medicine".

Me:- "If a man is losing his hair it usually has nothing to do with sickness, it just happens".

Friend:- "If he is losing his hair for no reason, that is bad, he is very kělián" (pitiful)

Me:- "Why is he pitiful?"

Friend:- "If he is a westerner it doesn't matter, he will still look shuài (handsome) and he will look strong, but a Chinese guy with no hair will not look good".

Me:- "Then what about if an older guy is losing his hair?"

Friend:- "I think he can still do something"

Me:- "Like what, like comb his hair over? You like that style?"

She did not answer but another friend said she would divorce her husband. I think she was only half joking and I don't know whether she meant she would divorce him if he did have the comb over or if he didn't.

Why is it such a big deal for a man to be thin on top here? If it was a woman naturally that would be devastating, but surely the best thing for a man to do is accept it, after all what is the point of fighting against it. Another drastic measure that men take here is the awful toupee option. I have seen men in their 70s and 80s wearing jet black "hair" pieces and I use the term "hair" loosely as I am not sure who or what originally owned the hair, I am sure some of the toupees are not of human origin, so strange is their appearance.

Grey hair is also frowned upon for reasons that are addressed in the article about aging. I don't understand why some older people dye their hair jet black and then let it grow out until they have several inches of white and then dye it jet black again, thus revealing their secret. Once they go down the dyeing route, it is something that has to be kept to rigorously, thereafter they will be a slave to the dye bottle. Also this jet black hair on very old people confuses me, as when an old person gets on the bus I stand up to let them have my seat. Sometimes they are annoyed as they don't want other people to think they are old, they have the black hair to prove it. At times I have offered my seat to people that are not really old, I just made a mistake, and then they are really upset, I don't know who is old and who isn't.

"Young Hair"

Younger Chinese guys are very adventurous in their hair styles and quite often dye their hair brown or blonde, although once upon a time a man with dyed hair would have been labelled a rebel. In TV shows and films bad guys usually have coloured hair. In Tianjin hairdressing is big business and one street may have several hairdressing salons. The hairstyles being sported by the male hairdressers are extremely, shall we say…..experimental.

Conversely the girls are advised not to spend too much time on their hair. You may have noticed that a lot of young Chinese girls have very short unisex pudding bowl haircuts, this is because the schools and universities require that they keep it short so that they don't spend unnecessary time grooming it. The teachers really emphasise that keeping their hair long is vanity so many girls are compelled to comply and cut it all off. The first thing the girls do when they leave university is to grow their hair.

It seems that no matter what kind of culture or society we live in, we are all far too obsessed with physical appearances. Why do we have to judge people based on the amount of hair they have on their heads or how young they look? When did it become a crime to have less than a full head of hair? Incidentally Chinese people who come from other places to live in Tianjin complain that they lose a worryingly large amount of hair, something that doesn'thappen when they are in their own hometown, although Tianjiners do not seem to have the same problem. All I know is that MSG is known to make the hair fall out so next time you go to eat at a restaurant you can say "bùyàowèijīng". They may or may not listen, but at least you will have tried and it may be that you will need that comb over option later rather than sooner.