It’s a Living: Work & Life in Vietnam Today

Chapter 12: Grooming

GROOMING 242 GROOMING 244 barber My dad was a barber and he passed the profession down to me. I’m 35 years old. My hometown is in Hà Nam province, but I’ve been living and earning a living in Hanoi for a while now. I just got married recently, which is actually pretty late. My wife works at a state-owned shoe factory; it’s a good, stable job to have. Given that I’m a street-side barber, I guess you could describe my workspace as quite spacious [laughs]. Five years ago, there was an HIV-prevention project in Hanoi. As part of the project, they concentrated all the street-side barbers into three different areas around the city. I think this is the only one of the three that’s left today. I’m not sure why; maybe it’s because the sidewalk here is wide and we don’t impact the local businesses. Plus, there just aren’t that many places left in Hanoi where you can have 12 barbers all working alongside each other. Ever since we started working here, we’ve been working nonstop — even on the first and second day of each lunar month, when people consider it unlucky to get a haircut. Every job has its pressures, including this one. Customers can be difficult, or make GROOMING 245 special requests. If that happens, I just tell them: “If you’re not satisfied this time, you can go to another barber the next time.” That’s it: if I do a good job, they come back; if not, I’ll never see them again. Most of my customers are men, and most of them are regulars. I get customers of every age, from little kids to old men. Some men get a shave too, but not that many. I like to talk to customers while I’m cutting their hair; some of the older ones with a lot of life experience can be really interesting to talk to. Hanoians enjoy the convenience and the atmosphere of getting a haircut in the open air. Most of my customers are middle-class; they have the money to go to a salon, but they still come here to get their hair cut on the street. Plus, there’s the problem of your wife seeing your new haircut and asking, “Where did you get your hair cut, honey?” You see, there’re a lot of salons that specialize in men’s haircuts, where they’ve got a lot of young women employees, and well I wouldn’t know myself, but customers tell me the girls can get very touchy-feely, if you know what I mean. A man can avoid a lot of questions if he can tell his wife he got his haircut on the street. Even though my father passed the profession on to me, I still tried my hand at different jobs before I decided to make cutting hair my career. That’s why I only became a barber when I was 25. To tell you the truth, in the beginning I didn’t like the job because most people didn’t take very good care of their hair and beards back then. But that’s changed a lot over the years. Since I first started, I’ve worked at three different places: two years in my hometown, three years at the Security University in Thanh Xuân District, and five years here. I remember when I first started cutting hair: I actually managed to hurt both the president and vice-president of my commune [laughs]. I’ll admit, even after ten years, I still make mistakes sometimes. GROOMING 246 There’s a little competition, but nothing serious; basically, you cut your customers’ hair, and I cut mine, that’s it. In an average day, I probably do ten haircuts and make about 350,000 đồng [$17.50]. My equipment isn’t expensive, less than 2 million đồng [$100] all in. My only real expenses are the fees for electricity, garbage, and renting a little space to store my equipment at the local school every night. When I first started, I used to earn 2 or 3 million đồng [$100 or $150] a month, but with inflation being the way it is, these days I earn around 10 million [$500...