Tales of an Asian Poindexter/James Franco Doppelganger

I went to a barber here in Phuket to get a haircut. It was more of an experiment to study,

1)      Can Thai people cut western hair?

2)       Can I get a good haircut despite a language barrier?

In short, the answer to both is, “No.” But it was an adventure.

Emy, the team artist, stylist, fashionista, etc., spent a good amount of time seeking out the right look to match my odd shape head. We settled on this still of James Franco. Now, keep in mind, I didn’t go into the salon under the assumption I’d be walking out the door looking like James Franco, but I did not expect to look like an Asian Poindexter.

The first lady barber was cross-eyed. She led me to believe her English was substantial, because when I asked, “will you still be here in 5 minutes?”  she replied, “okay.” I was there in 4 minutes. She was not.

False pretenses! Don’t just agree with everything willy-nilly because you don’t want to look like a bigger banana-head for not speaking my native tongue, okay? “Okay.” What if I was offering you drugs in exchange for a hand amputation? I bet you’d feel pretty dumb when you agreed only to find out my suitcase is measured in pounds instead of kilograms.

 The second lady looked like Javier Bardem in “No Country for Old Men,” but was super nice. She was in the midst of cutting a woman’s hair when I arrived. The long-haired woman was a local, and the barber lifted her out of the chair to make way for me. Whoa. I told her she didn’t have to do that. “She be here a long time.”

I showed her my Franco picture. She and her girlfriend had a good laugh, and apparently a lot to say about it (probably that not even the best haircut in the world would make me James Franco… jokes on you, I know I’m ugly, Anton Sigur).

The price came to 200 Baht (under $7 USD). I only had a 500 bill. She didn’t have change. I left my picture of James Franco as collateral and ran next door to make change. The guy at the convenient store (aka, his front yard) didn’t have 480 Baht change needed for this dusty, old tube of American potato chips (remind me, when did Transformers 2 come out again?). I told the old guy behind the counter I’d be right back with smaller bills.

The barber watched me run pass the salon. I think she came out to give chase until I ducked into the adjacent health store. In Thailand, a health store is pretty much a Tylenol and Tiger Balm depository. I wanted both, but then wouldn’t have money for both the haircut and the chips. I got the tiger balm, it smelled the best.

Long story boring, the haircut made me look less like James Franco, and more like an Asian nerd. She thinks she did a great job. She kept pointing to the picture, then to me, as if to say, “you guys all look alike anyway. I did a bang-up job. Time to play mah-jong. (Dragon sounds).”

P.S. Because he has no sideburns in the picture, the woman took the liberty of removing mine with a dry straight-razor… ouch and ew. She took more off of my left side, because that’s the side of James Franco we see in the picture.

I don't think they've ever seen curly hair before.