From The TORONTO STAR, Canada, December 8, 2007:
By Bill Schiller, ASIA BUREAU
BEIJING – The Chinese ideograms above the door reads: "Luck and longevity: Having both means great wealth." Behind the door, by that definition, lives one of the richest men in China. His name is Jing Kui, "Uncle Jing" to locals, and he's the oldest working barber in Beijing.
The first time I came to Uncle Jing's apartment in the Gaowo Hutong, just north of the Forbidden City, it was summer and he welcomed me like family. "We should all treat each other like family," he smiled. "In that way, we can all be happy. Happiness brings long life."
Uncle Jing knows – he'll be 94 this month.
Jing's philosophy on life: You reap what you sow June 2007 Photo of Jing Kui by courtesy of AlJazeera He knows about family, too. In the tiny courtyard where he lives, tucked away in one of the city's warren-like hutong neighbourhoods, his eldest son lives in the apartment on one side of him, his daughter on the other. They act like caring parentheses to Jing's daily existence.
"I've never cut a Westerner's hair before," Jing told me on that first visit.
I was sitting on the edge of his bed in the apartment where he has lived for more than 30 years, a small room measuring 4-by-6 metres, sparsely furnished, but filled with sunlight.
"How old are you Uncle Jing?" I asked politely.
"I'm 93."
"Well, there's a first time for everything," I smiled.
He smiled back, then walked over to a wooden cupboard and pulled out a small leather bag. Inside were a plastic bib, a towel, and a cotton organizer with panels for scissors, an old-fashioned pair of clippers, a comb, and five straight razors.
He draped the bib around me, tied it behind my neck, studied my dishevelled hair, then went to work.
The sound of steel sliding on steel filled the room as he snipped.
Everyone once in a while Jing would take two steps back, crouch to study my head as though it were a canvas, then swoop back in and start again.
In 30 minutes he was done and I was a changed man. He charged me 10 yuan (about $1.35), I paid him double and he poured tea.
"I've been cutting hair for almost 80 years," he says, "ever since I was 15."
He arrived in Beijing in 1929 from Shunyi, just north of the city, hoping to become an accountant. But accounting opportunities were few, he says, and a local barber liked the fact that Jing could read and write and hired him as an apprentice.
"There was hardly anyone in Beijing at the time," Jing recalls, lighting up a Double Happiness cigarette and exhaling. "Maybe just a million."
Beijing's current population, announced this week, is 17.4 million.
"There were no cars then and very few bikes. It was mainly just rickshaws."
His boss's shop was lit by kerosene lamps and in the height of summer, without any electricity, the apprentices would scurry about fanning clients to keep them cool.
Jing married, started a family and soon had his own business with two shops and a dozen people working for him – until 1949.
Soon after the founding of "the new China" under Mao Zedong, his shop was "nationalized."
"They gave me 600 yuan (about $80 at today's rate) and kicked me out," he says, matter-of-factly.
For the next six decades, he used his bicycle to go door-to-door, as well as welcoming clients to his home. He still does.
And he always cuts hair for the elderly and infirm free of charge.
"Money doesn't really matter," he shrugs. "When you die, the only question people will ask is, `Was he a good person or a bad person?' Better to do good deeds all your life."
What does he think of Beijing today?
"Aiyou!" ("Wow!"), says Jing, laughing. "I can hardly recognize it."
Where he remembers vegetable gardens in what is today the city's centre, there are now forests of skyscrapers.
"Skyscrapers everywhere," he says. "But what can you do about it? Nothing."
It's that kind of equanimity, knowing what you can change and what you cannot change, that helps keep Uncle Jing in good health; that, and the comfort and discipline of daily routine.
"I usually rise every morning a little after 6," he says. "I have regular times to eat, sleep and exercise."
A good breakfast and some morning stretches start the day, and a good lunch followed by a walk to the local kiosk for the Beijing Evening News occupies the afternoon.
But the true secret to longevity isn't really physical, Jing explains.
It's the way you treat others.
"We should be more sympathetic with each other," he says. "Treat a person well – he'll treat you well!"
A haircut at Uncle Jing's is worth it, even at twice the price.
Come for a haircut – receive the canon of common sense.
© Copyright Toronto Star 1996-2007
