A Chat with my Barber

I had an interesting conversation with the boss of a neighbourhood barber shop yesterday.

It started simply enough, when he asked, 'Boss, no plan today?'. I told him that today's plan was curry chicken and it triggered off his memories as a hawker running a stall opposite Changi Prison in the early 1980s, and curry chicken was one of his specialties.

But he gave up after 4 years to start his barber shop as the food business was too tiring for him. Nineteen years have passed since he moved to the neighbourhood and sixteen years since the shop opened.

Suddenly, he told me in a serious tone, 'You may be surprised, but quite a few Chinese shopkeepers here make use of jinn.'

'You can see them?' I asked.

'Yes, and my family too. You know what? They are scared of humans and they know who can see them and who cannot. Some Thai monks make use of them too.'

'How do they look like?' I asked.

'Oh, they look... different.'

'Do they have horns?' I probed further, ' At least that was how Incredible Tales portrayed a jinn.'

'No, no, no. They have very big nose...' he said, as he used his hands to describe the size of the jinn's nose, which looked like a football.

He then elaborated, 'I try not to enter shops with jinn, because they will either attack or run away because they are scared.'

I soon realised that the ambient noise in the barber shop came to a standstill, as if everyone else was trying to listen in to our little chat.

'OK, boss. Done. $10 only.'

That was my cue to go, I guess.