I fear the hairdresser

This is not due to vanity and a concern that I will leave with a head of hair resembling a tumble-weed nursery; nor do I worry that my peroxide-addled assailant will accidentally lop off an ear; it's not even the terror of wasting a tenner on something so ephemeral.

No, it's the chit-chat.

Being forced to listen to a middle-aged woman called Doreen prattle on about her ambition to save up enough money to move to one of the costas and open a chippy, or enduring some ridiculously coiffured NVQ trainee regale me with his recent adventures down Wetherspoons just makes me long for the long-overdue automation of the hair cutting process. Though, as we have learned from countless sci-fi plotlines, there would be a certain danger in filling our high streets with heavily armed, if slightly camp, robots.

But having my larynx gouged out by a switchblade-armed robotic sociopath is a risk I'm willing to take if it means I never have to endure another half-hour session of listening to the complete gibberish about mortgages and holidays in portugal and gypsies that most carbon-based barbers come out with. They're worse than taxi drivers; at least if you challenge a cabbie, they can't retaliate by giving you a lop-sided fringe.

So what a relief it is to get a haircut in China. Initial worries before arriving in Shanghai that it would be difficult to find a barbershop, or at least be able to differentiate between the reputable ones and those full of venereal disease-ridden peasant girls who wouldn't know their shampoos from their sets, proved to be unfounded. Indeed, it is the density of hair dressing salons on the average street in China that is one of the enigmas of the countries economy that puzzles me. Surely, even in a city with a population density as high as Shanghai, there can't be any way that this number of shops can employ this number of people in any kind of sustainable manner?

But whatever, finding a place to get your short back-and-sides isn't a problem. And by comparison to the UK, where getting a hair cut is a chore, here it's more akin to a treat, with the actual hair-cutting itself being almost inconsequential.

Upon walking in you are sat down and given a glass of kai shui (hot water). Your head is then shampooed, massaged and rinsed by one of the twenty or so girls who stand around awaiting your arrival. The same girl then gives you a head, arm, hand and upper back massage. It is only then that you are lead to the barber's chair, where the guy (it is almost always a guy, in my case Tang You (sp?)) proceeds to cut your hair, paying infinitesimal attention to the back and sides, while quite often leaving the top virtually untouched, requiring you to suggest he takes a little more off. And a bit more. And just a little bit more.

This is all made even better by the fact that it costs around £2.

And then, there's the almost complete lack of scope for annoying chit-chat.

Even on my most recent visit, when the entire staff decided to gather around me just as the neck massage was spiking the endorphins and chatter away at me about where I was from, what Chinese year I was born in, and why I didn't want to marry one of the girl assistants, it was a pleasure. Even the Chinese equivalent of the NVQ boy who hovered around me snapping photos and video on his mobile phone (another economic anomaly - how can someone who probably rakes in, at most, 600RMB - or £40 - a month afford such a piece of telephonic gadgetry) while Tang You teased my locks failed to anger me.

Because, despite my interrupted massage and crowd of spectators, I knew I wouldn't have to talk to a girl called Tracey about how difficult it is being a single mother, and pay a tenner for the privilege.

A far more insightful look into the world of the Chinese barber shop can be read here.