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
I have frequented the barber shop around the entrance of my village since childhood. The female hairdresser there is talkative, even if each conversation is similar. The shop does not own a shampoo bed. There is a washing basin with a short chair located about thigh high as an alternative. Bending the waist and burying the head inside, shower water pour from the top through the pinnae and the cheek like rituals of baptism. Aside the direction of the wall, I always stealthily open my left eye to witness all shampoo bubbles and water gone. The remaining drops seem like escaping from falling into the abyss. Watch. Watch. Watch. Listen. Small lakes are trapped in my ears and taken somewhere else…
Certain categories of career exist in this society; certain familiar strangers turn intimate behavior into services. Masseurs press our skins with fingers; tailors measure the length and width of our limbs; hairdressers wave scissors between scalps and hair. Fatigue should be dispersed; grand banquets are going to be hold; hoping that the mixture of trouble is put aside?
In such civilized world full of information, nothing is entirely new. However, daily imagery has gathered to create an unusual situation by our overwhelming senses. Pieces of memory flash back being transformed into our daily habits, values, faiths or beliefs.
Fragments of life keep shocking me. Shampoo bubbles, scissors or hair roller, do they retain, those fleeting circumstances? Usual objects are projected along with full of haunting impression, as well as initial ideas.
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 mentioned. Former barber shops in the Mainland were
mostly run by the government. It offered courses for trainees. Like terms of
bamboo hair and wood hair, I had never heard of. Suddenly, connecting to home
business, barber shops or massage shops around villages, most of them were operated
by female immigrants from the Mainland to Hong Kong. Sometimes, our
conversations associated with communism, political attitudes or anecdotes about
her marriage in a walled village. There was a huge distance of values among the
scalp. This ecology might soon disappear in modern society, yet it seemingly indicated
particular time and space about the identity-related issues towards my
generation, too chaotic.
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。間或談到共產主義；政治取態；些許嫁於圍村人的家庭逸事，一種相距甚遠的價值觀就在頭皮間。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。
