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“That hair.”

Some guy with obviously too long (for David Feng, at least) hair decided to rock to some tune on his MP3 player (which, sad to say to many a Mac revolutionary, is not an iPod). Clicked to his favorite tune. Then started shaking his head like there was no tomorrow.

“The next station is Zhichunlu. Please get ready for your arrival.” Yes, I was more than ready for my arrival — or departure, rather, from that crammed place near the door. And, yes, from that trembling teen in front of me. (Don’t know how old he is, but you see, I had to make the Ts fit…)

It suddenly dawned upon me. More and more young Chinese folks (especially guys my age) are donning weirder and weirder hairstyles. To have hair the length of your average girlfriend was now more and more “OK” in Beijing. Meanwhile, the most “handsome” kids have hair that look nothing short of — hedgehog-gy. This makes your reclusive blogger look more like a relic of the Mao era, hair-wise, than anything. (Reading the People’s Daily on a daily basis — heck, if for nothing more than just to keep my Chinese going — doesn’t make me any more “modernized”, so to speak.)

Spot the different hairstyles (or lack of them!) at this Beijing Subway station…Of Long and Colored Hair

The kind of hair I can’t stand (and that puts me in a firm alliance with many a university head) is when young guys grow long hair. To me, it just looks plain “non-man”. It could be that we are used to the clichéd norm that a guy has short hair, and a girl has either short or long hair, but to me, long is plain wrong.

Worse is when the hair is dyed. To stop looking old, Dad dyes his hair on a regular basis so that to many a bigwig (and ordinary citizen), he looks black all the way through (at least hair-wise). Yours truly is likely to head down the same path. Yet here we have those young, out-of-control kids dying their hair weird colors. Golden hair seems to be all the rage amongst young guys. To your black-haired blogger, anything other than the hair color you were brought up with seems just plain wrong.

You know what’s really funny? As David Feng starts this tirade de tête (French for “head”) on CNReviews, one of his Twitter friends is starting her own tirade about dying her hair black or another color. Either she’s brainwashed me, I’ve brainwashed her — or it’s just pure coincidence.

By the way — if you do not decide to dye your hair any other color (and if your hair is black) — do not say that I brainwashed you by means of this post!

The “Beiyuanlu North” Hair

I call the hedgehog-like hair the “Beiyuanlu North” variant for one thing: when a friend of an Apple pal quizzed me on what Subway Line 5 station looked most like a hedgehog, the answer (which was right, by the way) came out in less than an attosecond (I think): Beiyuanlu North Station. I mean, seriously, look at it!

OK, OK… since when have we been comparing people’s hair to subway station architecture?
I have seen way too many guys my age (or younger) being shuai (帅) or handsome with that kind of hedgehog-gy hair. It’s not exactly that they carry a complete replica of Beiyuanlu North station on their hair; it’s more that the hair “spritzes” out (that’s David Feng Language for “hedgehog-form hair distribution”) so that in the end, the hair looks more like a hedgehog. It’s not exactly like a hedgehog, by the way (certain not when the creature is not in “National Defence Mode” against their “People’s Public Enemy Number One”); you get one long hair this bit, and one short hair the other.My friends are in a bit of mix regarding my hairstyle, which looks like a bad mix between Luo Jing (of the 7 o’clock news program fame) and a kid who hasn’t grown up (fully) yet. One of my former Taiwanese friends suggested I go bald (this was not the reason, by the way, why I hung up on him). Some months ago, when I was still single, a friend threatened to introduce me to potential girlfriends only if I changed my hairstyle. (FYI, my girlfriend now accepts my hairstyle — just the way I thought it would all work out.)

On a personal basis, at times I feel so disgusted with the new hedgehog hair style what whenever I catch some guy with the hedgehog hair style on TV being some kind of star, I secretly hope there was a rock to smash into the telly. It’s just me, I guess, a bit (or too much, at this) “old-fashioned”.

And here I am, thinking Mom and Dad were already too “old-fashioned”…

And Now, Something For the Ladies…

Many a Chinese girl’s hair is black — their male counterparts are far more innovative, hair-wise. That said, I know one friend with golden hair (or black-golden hair the way I see it).

I personally see nothing wrong with her kind of hair. And I see nothing wrong with too-short hair or too-long hair. I do, however, hold a personal (if nothing else) grudge against those coloring it red.

To me, it’s not anything about it being right or wrong.

You see, to me, it looks downright scary.

Having said that, the vast majority of my feminine friends are big subscribers to the near-ubiquitous ponytail. I have mixed views of the ponytail — personally (and this may just be me), I prefer long hair over ponytailed hair. Having said that, though, at the end of the day, what a lady decides to do with her hair ultimately is her own free choice.

Freedom is a good thing.