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Finding Joy
Clippers, chatter and curry: A kampung echo at my heartland barber shop
From the radio’s croon to debates on what to have for lunch, the barber’s chair delivers small, reliable joy – and the quiet comfort of home.
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From the radio’s croon to debates on what to have for lunch, the barber’s chair offers small joys and homely comfort.
ST ILLUSTRATION: CEL GULAPA
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I generalise, but I think most people have a low view of the heartland barber shop where most men in this country get their hair cut. You find them in every neighbourhood, tucked into void decks and old shopping centres. Women often say they are envious: “How nice to be a man. It’s so quick and cheap, and never goes wrong.”
Wrong! It can go terribly awry – which is exactly why one looks for, and then keeps, the same barber for a long time. The heartland barber shop is not, to use a word rarely applied to haircuts, fungible.
