Soap bars, Shuangxi cigarettes, plastic hair rollers, scissors, a comb, a plastic chopping block, a washbasin, swarovski's rhinestones, chairs, stones, hair, a mirror, jelly wax, inkjet print, a plastic basket, a carpet, a plastic shelf and plastic containers
Dimension variable
Since childhood I have visited the barbershop near my village. The auntie there is always talkative, though our conversations never really change. The shop has no reclining chair for washing hair; instead, there is a washbasin set at thigh height and a low stool. Bending forward, head lowered, the shower water pours down, warm streams flowing past the ears and cheeks—like a ritual of purification. Against the wall, I would secretly open my left eye, watching foam and water drain away, leaving behind swelling droplets that seemed to resist falling into the abyss. Watching, watching, watching, listening—the hollow of the ear cradled a small lake, then being carried elsewhere…
Society contains certain trades, certain familiar strangers, who transform acts of intimacy into services. A masseur kneads and presses the skin with fingertips; a tailor measures the body’s length and breadth with a soft tape; a hairdresser moves scissors and comb across scalp and hair. To dispel fatigue; to prepare for a grand banquet; or to hope that worries might briefly be set aside.
The swift circulation of information has given rise to similar social structures across nations. Within the richness of civilization’s experience, nothing is wholly unfamiliar; yet the eye records fragments, joined by restless impressions of ear, nose, and touch, forming a unique situation. Snatches of words, fleeting images of daily life—turning memory into habit, into value, even into belief or conviction. Ordinary, yet full of struggle.
I am repeatedly startled by fragments of life. Foam, scissors, curling hair—might they remain, those fleeting scenes? The impressions cast upon ordinary thing.
村口的理髮店自幾歲便光顧。姨姨健談，縱然每次對話沒差。店內沒有讓客人躺下洗髮的床椅，替代的是設於約大腿高的洗手盤和矮椅子。曲起腰肢埋下頭，花灑水從上傾瀉，溫水輕流耳背貼伏臉頰，像宗教洗滌的儀式。靠牆那邊，我總是偷偷張開左眼，見證泡沫及水盡去，遺留鼓起的水珠似極力避免跌進深淵。看著，看著，看著，聽著，耳窩裡原來裹住一個小湖泊，又被帶到別處去……
社會存在某種類別的行業，某種熟悉的陌生人，將極盡親匿的行為轉化為服務。按摩師用指頭在肌膚輕揉按壓；裁縫以軟尺打量肢體長短肥瘦；髮型師於頭皮與毛髮間撥動揮剪。要把疲勞驅散；給盛大宴會作準備；還是冀煩惱稍稍擱下？
通達而瞬變的資訊催生出不同國度類近的社會結構。人們在豐富的文明經驗下，誠然沒有單一物事全然陌生，然而眼睛記下零碎影像，連同沒閒著的耳鼻觸感將總體印象結集成獨特處境。片言隻語；浮光掠影的日常，把回憶化為習慣、價值、以至信仰，抑或信念。
我被生活的片段一再驚動。泡沫、剪刀、卷髮，可能留下，那稍縱即逝的情景？尋常事物被投放的印象總縈繞心頭，是深種的念頭。
She—the hairdresser I mentioned—told me that barber shops in the Mainland used to be mostly state run. They even offered formal training courses. Terms like “bamboo hair” and “wood hair” were completely new to me. Suddenly, I found myself connecting her stories to the small home based businesses I grew up around: the barber shops or massage parlours in village areas, many of them run by women who had migrated from the Mainland to Hong Kong.
Our conversations often drifted into attitudes, or anecdotes about her marriage in a walled village. There was a vast distance of values layered across the scalp. This whole ecology may soon disappear in modern society, yet it seems to point to a particular time and space—one entangled with identity issues that my generation also inherits, in all its chaos.
姨姨提及，從前內地的理髮店多為官辦，會開設課程培訓學員，如竹髮、木髮等專門術語便從未聽聞。忽爾，串連村屋周邊家庭作業。理髮也好；按摩也好，大多是由內地移民到港的女子經營。間或談到些許嫁於圍村人的家庭逸事。這個可能即將失落於現代的生態，就似標誌著我輩特定時空其中一個相關身分問題的原點，理還亂。
