Working from the heart
Having just finished styling a customer at their first shop in Tianmu, Auntie sits down for our interview and says: “When people see the shop’s success, they think that I was Willy’s benefactor. But that’s not true. We’ve been each other’s benefactors.”
Auntie’s life has changed a great deal since meeting Willy. She is still cutting hair, but she has become even more skilled and has personally trained nearly all of the young stylists working at their second shop.
Stepping into Auntie’s, you enter a joyful space in which the sounds of conversation dominate those of the music and the hair driers. Willy says that Auntie has a unique ability to remember details about their customers’ lives. When one of them has experienced something particularly momentous, whether the good fortune of having a baby or the misfortune of a car accident, she gives him a red envelope.
Auntie is grateful to all her clients for her hair-cutting skills. “I wouldn’t be nearly the barber I am today if it hadn’t been for all these handsome men letting me practice on them,” she says, then guffaws. Barbering is hard work, but she enjoys it.
She’s also become an influential figure that people listen to.
“David” (Yan Juncheng), a high-school classmate of Willy’s, is also a partner in the business and manages its non-technical matters. Watching the care with which Auntie treats customers, David has learned to interact with them as friends who he happens to see once a month. They share a cigarette and a conversation, perhaps talking about highs and lows at work. Auntie’s is the kind of place where men can relax and let down their defenses. David enjoys seeing men come in alone to have some time to themselves, and fathers introducing their sons to the barbershop experience and creating treasured memories together. The sincerity of the human interactions permeates the atmosphere at Auntie’s.
The young men who come to the shop pay real attention to what Auntie has to say. In fact, it is her conversation and advice that shape and maintain the shop’s culture.
These good vibes are at the heart of the shop’s success. While barbershop culture is a foreign import, and Tianmu itself a gathering spot for Taiwan’s expatriates, Auntie bridges the language divide and enables non-Taiwanese to experience something distinctly Taiwanese. David says that Auntie’s gives this foreign import back to international visitors in a form that’s even better than the original.
Barbershops fell out of favor with Taiwan’s young people for a time because young people viewed them as old fashioned. But the younger generation’s rediscovery of barbershop culture is preserving and reinvigorating it. The idea to open a Taiwanese barbershop has blossomed into a vibrant barbershop culture, turning these spaces into places that men see as their own, where fathers and sons can forge memories, and men can talk about what’s on their minds.
Barber’s Select aims to create a space where men can feel at ease.
Men enjoy taking some time for themselves at Auntie’s, relaxing while the shop’s barbers handle their hair.
Auntie’s tools have seen more than 20 years of service.
Willy, Auntie, and David treat their customers with openness and sincerity, and are working together to pass on Taiwan’s barbershop culture.