MY late mama used to perm her hair once a year – and she had it done at the homes of hairdressers, usually in the neighbourhood, at a comparatively low price. Modest but elegant.
Mama said since the hairdressers did not have to rent a business premises, they were able to charge cheaper. She was very happy with the service and price.
Mama also related that the hairdressers would perm her hair more “curly” so the curls and twists would last longer. A once-a-year perm usually sufficed, and it was done during Chinese New Year to usher in the new year.
The only setback was, once, after she reached home with a new hairdo, her baby daughter (yours truly) could not recognise her and screamed and cried whenever mama came close to her. That lasted for over a week.
For that, my mama – even after I have become a mother myself – would still say lovingly: “Silly girl.”
Those were memories and her enduring legacies – thriftiness, wisdom, wits, compassion and resilience.
Home service was then, and still is, for thrifty housewives and smart consumers who know how to stretch their weakening ringgit. With more “Do-it-yourself” kits available over most paramedical stores, dyeing hair does not warrant a home service at all – just DIY!
I suppose I should be grateful to Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, the prime minister’s wife, for enlightening me on a different kind of home service – a hairdresser on call like a doctor on call – and thus eliciting elitist scorn.
Somehow, this reminded me of the infamous response commonly attributed to Marie Antoinette, the Dauphine of France and wife of Louis XVI, the king of France. When told starving French peasants had no bread, she uttered: “Qu’ilsmangent de la brioche” (let them eat cake.)
Many social media sites, news portal and even foreign wire services had reported on Rosmah’s revelation of spending an astronomical sum for a service that is hair-raising and should stand as one of her enduring legacies.
Rosmah had said during a briefing on GST with the Welfare Association of the Wives of Ministers and Deputy Ministers (Bakti) she was paying a hairdresser RM1,200 to dye her hair as a home service. Some consider her utterance “most insensitive” but well, what’s not news whenever she speaks?
Indeed, when the country’s minimum wage is RM900 (RM800 in Sarawak and Sabah), a hair dyeing session costing RM1,200 is gross by any standard.
Many historians have pointed out that the vacuous statement – Let them eat cake – could be wrongly attributed to Marie Antoinette. But the main point was to bring to light the fact that many royalties had no idea what poverty meant. They thought in case there was not enough bread for the people, they would have cake instead. The royal subjects did not know the people. They did not know about poverty.
As a matter of fact, it is historically recorded that an ancient Chinese emperor who, on being told his famine-stricken subjects had not enough rice to eat, replied: “Why don’t they eat meat?”
I can only assume Rosmah is out of touch with the people.
“We have to make beautiful clothes to attend functions but the prices are way too high. For those who can afford, it’s all right. But what about housewives like us, with no income,” she was quoted as saying.
Apparently, she was trying to defend the implementation of GST in April by highlighting her “overcharged” hair-dye as an example to show that with this new tax, businesses can no longer charge their customers just anyhow. I don’t see the logic of it, though.
To be honest, not only the prime minister’s wife but many of our leaders have also lost touch with the rakyat.
Did not the same minister who advocated boycotting the businesses of a certain race because of costlier consumer goods, also made the call two years ago to “avoid chicken meat if price goes up, change your taste, eat fish or beef?”
Yes, some administrations are hard to live with as they are headed by people who are either incompetent, impulsive, simple-minded or naïve!
But we need not despair. After careful and painstaking research, Lady Antonia Fraser published a biography of the French queen that painted an entirely different picture of Marie Antoinette – one of a woman who cared greatly for the plight of the lower classes and was a great patron of charity who personally got involved in feeding the poor during a prolonged period of bread shortages.
This Marie Antoinette would not have suggested that starving people simply bought cake they could not afford.
My mama, a housewife with her limited means, had been able to live well and even with loving thoughts for her children and people around her. Indeed, many other women like her are living thoughtfully and generously as they make the choices and decisions of life.
Indeed, “A man’s life does not consist of the abundance of things which he possesses” (Luke 12:15) and certainly not how much you spend on a hairdo!
Live thoughtfully.