Bob and his barbershop
by Zhang Ziyan
Bob is a boss of barbershop，he has 2 barbershops in south city，Kuala Lumpur. Bob is a gentle and kind guy, but he is always busy, I went to him 4 times to finish this interview. He has 5 stuffs in these 2 barbershops, and they do tattoo jobs sometimes.
Bod is from Iran, and now he and his family is living in Malaysia. He is a musician back in Iran, he has been doing that job for almost 20 years, and he has a music studio in America. Being a barber is just a avocation for him. When I asked him, why did you start this work, he said, “first of all, I am a musician, I love art, and I think barber is another kind of art. And I think this work is not too heavy, I still have enough time to do my music business while doing this, so I think this would be the best choice to live in Malaysia, after all this job is doing well actually.” Bob is a different person to me when I first met him, he feels so confident and positive. He will ask very carefully before he start cutting hair, he will ask every single detail of demands, and he has pretty good skills of haircut.
Bob said, he has been doing barber for 9 years, and sometimes he will meet some people who is doing the same job as barber, and sometimes the people who is doing music and really good. He got to know a lot of people by doing the barber job, more than before when he is doing music. He said, “before when I started the barber, I was concentrating on music making, and I just worked with a few people, we were almost in the same sphere, so I don’t have too many chance to know more people, but in this area, I can meet a lot of different people every day, and I can get many fresh story during talking to them, it gave me more and more inspiration of composing music, I really appreciate this job.
“How many difficulties have you met before?” Bob answered, “for this industry, the talent is the biggest problem. At the beginning of this work that’s to say 9 years ago, I was studying haircut, there were some people studying as well with me, and some of them found it’s too difficult, and they didn’t make it after a few months, for me there is seldom difficulty. I think it is something about talent, if you have the talent of dealing with haircut, you will be fine, if you don’t, the best choice is to choose another one that is suitable.
