I saw a hair carpet the other day. I try to be open minded about these things, but I was a little bit sick in my mouth as I clocked this artisanal homeware en route to important lady bidness with my personal waxer. A street barber down the rattan end of Sothearos had his toes wriggling luxuriously in an area rug of his customer’s creation – a springy black mat of upcycled lopped locks and whiskers, tamped and cosy, circumnavigating the base of his swivel chair. Next he’ll be weaving matching drapes. And don’t get me started on those foot-long strokers that sprout from lucky moles. I fucking hate those. Get a moto mirror and some tweezers, people.
Despite all the impressive K-pop quiffs, I’ve yet to see a Khmer guy sport a respectable stubble ‘n’ tache, let alone a full hobo. When my bloke and I glamped around the Kiris for a fortnight, he let his hairs – all five of them – run free. There is no kind translation of ‘ridiculous bumfluff’. It was a tense 12-hour trip back, with a detour via DeCaprio’s on 63.
Foreigners have no problem sprouting lame-arsed manponies and unscaped backs. Ditto with the face fur. But the preened and pruned topiary of the mid-noughties flashpacker has manned up. I’m not just talking a Gosling ‘gateway beard’, or the ‘Wat Langka Wanka’, which is plaitable, but fuck-off enormous Darwinian bushmasters. That’s a lot of yangness. As a red-blooded heterosexualish woman I am not averse to fellows exposing their inner Lebowski. Though I’ve not spent much time aboard the beardy bandwagon, I don’t mind hitching a ride now and then, and there are some notable chops I yearn to stroke. Charlie Hunnam out of Sons Of Anarchy. JT hirsuted up. Clooney’s salt and pepper pleasure. But for the most part I like my men’s jaws and chins where I can see them.
So it thrills me to my chakras whenever I see a monk. I’m sorry, Buddha, but frankly I get a bit pervy. See that twitchy tuk tuk curtain? It’s not a capricious Mekong breeze. That’s me spying on a wing of handsome, hair-free holy men on their way to instant karma. They pop and ping across the Penh, instantly reviving some long-dormant happy place in my usually blue-grey matter. Granted, they give good wardrobe – swathed in every mandarin hue under the sun and sometimes all in the same radiant ensemble. Righteous layering, right there. But it’s their serene hairlessness that seals the deal. Their androgynous aesthetic is catnip to me. Sans eyebrows they are like beatific aliens sauntering among us – perfectly, piously odd.
Like the Sweeney Todd of Sothearos, I accept man hair is all around us, especially so at this festive time of year. Sure, sweet baby Jesus was an adorable little poppet back in the day. According to the edible nativity in one of our laughable malls, he was certainly smooth, pink and unusually blond for someone who wasn’t born in Jönköping. But they all grow up, don’t they? Yesterday’s glaborous suckling is today’s beardy oracle. Santa was young once and look at him now: covered in the stuff.