Filed under: Bay Area scenes
The sign reads “Happy Moderna” In cheerful, nonsensical Chinglish. What on earth is a happy moderna you ask? Well, it’s one of many hidden gems in O-town China-town. For almost a decade now I have patronized Happy Moderna’s owner and resident hair whiz and hair instructor Phillip. He ws the first human to ever find a peaceful resolution to my hedge of thick and stubborn hair-healthy as can be, but utterly immune to any attempt at actual stylishness. A carefully layered cut that grows out gracefully into a different beautiful cut, and a color treatment runs about $65 bucks. I’ve paid more than $200 for the same elsewhere, and still no one is as good as Phillip.
Sitting in that chair is like an anthropological outing. I put up with bad karoake tapes in 3 languages (Phillip speaks 4), crummy towels, surly assistants, plastic shields that look like they were cut from the blue plastic which wraps my morning paper, and such a haphazard amalglam of certificates, family photos, hair models, and misspelled signs that I can barely contain myself from straightening the place up and dusting. People holler at one another and blithely smoke cigarettes (despite the signs) in the halls, and I’d rather my bladder burst than to take the key and venture behind the gated door to the dungeonesque shared loo ever again. Phillip also has an annoying habit of flirting with my mum (does wonders with her hair too) and excessively hugging me. Upstairs in a dark and muggy room with a teeny square window someone uncertified performs Chinese massage.
Periodically I pilgrimage there. And sit in a chair with chemicals on my head and ponder how I have come to be in this ghetto salon with poison on my head all for the sake of my accursed vanity. While waiting for the color to process, Phillip often wanders off to place calls which sound suspiciously as if they are to some kind of bookie.
An almost magically incongrous moment occurred last time, when amidst the shuffle of cheap plastic slippers and hollering Cantonese, I noticed something in the hallway. Beside the plastic chairs, was a long silhoette covered in velvet. The esthetician who does facials scuttled out of her wooden cube to practice the Ghu zheng, Chinese zither in her off time. The notes fell like water, swirled around and through the mess. Such an elegant instrument, it brings to mind images of graceful hands, harplike gestures. Dim memories of my mother’s Ghu Zheng back in Taiwan.
I also bore witness during this last visit to two different men trying to pawn off diamond jewelry to Happy Moderna staff and/or any random passerby. The staff shook their heads. “No,” and “I have no money.” In Chinese and Vietnamese they further commented, “I bet it’s fake.” or “I bet it’s stolen.”
Phillip ignored it all, kept his hands and eyes fixated on layering the 2 shining wings of hair on opposite sides exactly evenly and smoothly.
A big sigh, “No one has any money now, they’re all trying to pawn things, each home is liquidating things.” I thought about these men carrying the cheerful desperation of urgent sales. If I saw 2 in less than 2 hours, how many others are there? I suddenly realized that there were no other customers waiting on Phillip. During boom days, he’d have 3 in chairs and be doing all three in different stages. In previous years other women had grumbled and complained about him spending too much time on me.
I tipped well. It still cost less than half of what I would have paid in Palo Alto or Fremont. I hope the money doesn’t go to a bookie or illegal mahjong house…
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Man, what a beautifully written post! I loved the description of the salon.
This story makes me wish I had some vanity within me. I might have some residual pride in my appearance somewhere, but I can’t bring myself to spend more than $20.00 on my hair.
KenWa 11.08.08 @ 11:59 pm