Bad haircut karma
Live in the capital of China too long and you start to get suspicious when there’s not a crowd. So not long after lunar new year when I walked into my usual barbershop and found it empty, I asked the owner if business was looking down.
“Oh we just opened today after the holiday.”
“But then I’d have thought you’d have customers lined up to come in!”
“You’re not supposed to get your hair cut during the holiday.”
Hmm. And that from the same proprietor who’d sell hair conditioner to the bald. He half-laughed, and then he said that in Beijing they say
正月不剃头，剃头死舅舅
Zhēngyuè bù tìtóu, tìtóu sǐ jiùjiu
During the first month don’t shave your head or your uncle will die*
A couple of the stylists gave quizzical looks and said they’d never heard the term, but he claimed it was old Beijing, which my sources seem to agree with. I got my hair cut anyway, promising to blame my future ills on the incident, and that was the end of bad haircut karma days.
Or so I thought until I walked into the shop again a couple days ago on Thursday the 18th (lunar calendar 2nd month, day 3).
The shop was deserted except for owner and two attendants lounging on the grimy faux leather red couches. The owner jumped up: “You should have seen how many customers there were here yesterday; we cut over 200!”
Then, as if anticipating my doubts, as if wanting to comfort me for having now, apparently, doubled my bad haircut karma by missing the most auspicious haircut day of the year, he flipped open the paper to… yes, indeed: a half-page spread on the tradition of getting your hair cut on the second day of the second lunar month. If you want to read about the tradition, check out the far right column for a quick explication which includes the “uncle dying” business from above.
What can I say? We’ll try to sync the Sinoglot calendars next year and give you an advance warning on when to call your hair stylist.
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* Special Sinoglot rewards for a pithy translation. In Mandarin, it rhymes, which is kind of cute. Reminds me of the US kids’ hijinks rhyme, “Step on a line and you’ll break your mother’s spine”, declared as you’re walking down the sidewalk. [Reward-seekers, just so you know what you’re up against, Google Translate would have it: “The first month is not shaved, shaved dead uncle”. I’m not one to comment on machine translation usually, but that is just poetic.]
“In the first month don’t shave your head, shave your head and your uncle will end up dead”
My family still actively practices this superstition, and I have on occasion used it to my advantage. For example, my mom is always bugging me to cut my hair, because her idea of a proper haircut apparently includes only a crew cut, and she thinks any longer hair loos 邋遢. I have subsequently used this superstition as an excuse to not cut my hair.
Here’s my attempt at a translation:
“If you take a first month shave, then it’ll be on your uncle’s grave.”
@Max and @Tony: head/dead, shave/grave — excellent! And all before 9am on a Saturday morning. Impressive. Now all we need is some meter 😀
Well of course you don’t get your hair cut during new year. It cuts away the bad luck.
“Cut your hair in the first moon of the year
and Death will cut out someone dear.”
“Uncle says it’s the death of him, if you get a first month trim.”
or perhaps “…if your year starts with a trim.”
“First month cuts are bad you know, Cut your hair and kill Mom’s bro!”
First month haircuts are not wise, Cut your hair and uncle dies!
Better and better! @Danielho: I especially like the “moon” innovation, since that does a better job with the whole lunar calendar thing. @Chris: nice work on meter; in my conservative estimation, you get the prize for first solid meter.
Too bad we don’t have a Sinoglot tchotchke store that we could give out credits for…
[tchotchke: talk about an English word that’s in desperate need of spelling reform. Yuck.]
How about pithifying Tony’s to:
“First-month shave, Uncle’s grave.”
Snappy.