I went to my regular barber for my haircut today. Nisa likes me to keep my hair long, with my salt and pepper look and white bangs but unfortunately, this is hardly the acceptable business look; so its neat and tidy until we give it all up.
The New Star barber is along East Coast Road, directly opposite Woo Mon Chew Rd and just outside where I currently live. It is probably apt to say it has seen its share of better days, what with it likely being the first in the 1950s to have complete air-condition and offer warm towels to massage your face. And here lies its story. Whilst I have never had a proper conversation with the proprietor (because for some reason he thinks I'm Malay and always speaks in Malay to me..and I don't), I gather he came from India in the 1950s and started the barbershop along East Coast Rd at that time.
I've been going there for some 30+ yrs now. The shop is in a rent-controlled building, which means the landlord is not allowed to increase the rent beyond a paltry amount. This rent-control thingy is a throw back to the post colonial days of Singapore where laws were enacted to prevent landlords from taking advantage of poor tenants by jacking up the rent periodically. The social evil (to be stopped) then was to prevent the masses from being dumped into the streets, with fat cat landlords looking upon. The barbershop hardly benefitted because in all the years I have been there, it has never been renovated. Along the years, I have developed a warm nostalgic feeling every time I visit, lying down in the comfort of familiar surroundings.
Only recently was the rent-control lifted and the poor barbershop was forced to leave. Seems the landlord wanted to charge back rent and the barbershop resisted. For a moment I was afraid I would lose my favourite barbershop until the proprietor told me confidently there was nothing to fear.
Seems the industry and the street-smarts of our migrant fore-fathers shone through. He always knew the day would come where he would be forced to vacate his premises and he had been quietly saving, finally enough to buy the modern shop lot across the street - he is now a land owner!! He explained he never wanted to move because all his customers (ie people like me) knew where he was and the best thing to do was to go across the street.
He renovated the new premises exactly in the same look and style as the one I have been coming too all these years. The floor had the same colour mosaic, the florescent lights were the same shade of blue, the barber chairs were faithfully shifted across and the stools where the young sit on, just so they can be propped up onto the adult barber chair, was recreated. Even the gas heater and the sink for the towels were moved across. Everything was position as it were in the old shop, down to the signage. The only concession was the shop front was now floor to ceiling glass whereas the old shop front had big windows.
Here's what it looks like now (just exactly like it was then):
No - that's not me having my hair cut but this is exactly what it was 30yrs ago!! See the no-smoking sign on the mirror, it was there at the old shop, right in the middle of the mirror then, as it is now!
The barbershop holds a lot of memories for me. This is where I would go to get my hair cut to Raffles Institution standard before the school term starts, always pleading to leave some hair. This is where I would go for my hair cut prior to every reservist training session, this time pleading to cut more rather than less. And in my professional life, I have come to cherish the hair cut he would give me - neat and tidy, not overly short, and always just right.
Well..see you in another 5 weeks, Mr barbershop. I'll try and get Jamie to come too, when we live in East Coast.
No durian head for our son ok? Promise me that.
ReplyDelete