Twin-hairdressers on Mojiang Old Street

Hairdressers Zhang Jiachun and Zhang Jialin

Standing on the left side of Mojiang Old Street, the elder brother Zhang Jiachun's barber, with the title "Twins' Barber"seems rather rudimentary. Some old posters were hanging on both sides inside the room, with one side of a big mirror; two chairs and a set of hair-washing instrument. It's kind of being out of time while compared with those modern salons. But, hey, in such a small barber, Zhang is doing the traditional hair things that the modern salons can't do, like shaving, and hairstyles of the old time, which are definitely to the taste of old people, or people with nostalgia. Zhang's twin brother, Zhang Jialin, is running another barber right across the Old Street. The barbers locate so close that wouldn't there be competitions? Come on, the twins are close too, even closer. In fact these two middle-aged twin-brothers never thought about such competing things. On the contrary, funny things happen from time to time. Customers before they got the idea that there were twin-hairdressers on the same street would mistakenly run into the other's barber, which he thought was the same one that he had been to, and ask surprisingly, "Why you keep on moving you barber around? I remember it was on the other side last time!"

It was about 24years ago when the twins' father first sent them to their teacher, Wu Huachu, to learn hairdressing. Master Wu was the most famous hairdresser in Mojiang. He once went to Beijing and happened to do hairdressing to our Premier Zhou. However, learning hairdressing was not the twins'dream at first; they were forced to learn it as a living career because their father was a good friend of Master Wu and they were "luckily" chosen as his apprentices. While talking about their unfinished Middle school years, Zhang Jialin still seems more or less regretful, he   kept on repeating, What a pity I didn't finish my middle school; I loved study." But nearly three decades has gone, and the two brothers have been living on their skill that they learned from their teacher, Master Wu; maybe they will live on it for the rest of their life-they are satisfied with it now.