B & P 헤어클럽

If you do spend a year in Mokpo you'll have to plan for your hair. Sooner or later you'll have to get a hair cut and since most people like me are either utterly incompetent with the Korean language or have completely foreign hair, the prospect is downright scary scary.

Fortunately there are enough foreigners in Korea to pool their collective knowledge and provide hope. One of the first things that you learn is the barber pole system. One barber pole means barber. Two barber poles means naked barber.

A doubled barber's pole with red, white, and blue is a common sign that a building contains a brothel or a massage parlor that offers sexual services.

In Mokpo, some of the foreigners go to B & P Hair Club (B & P 헤어클럽 aka B & P heeo keulleop), a single pole, unisex, and multi age salon. From the foreigner collective I learned that that the salon is run (maybe owned or managed) by a pair of fairly stylish sisters and one of them remembers enough English from high school to meet you half way in your communication adventure. But of course it always help to come prepared with a couple of reference photos or whatever.

In the end I managed to get a simple cut (which includes a cool shampoo scalp massage) for 7,000₩. It's an average price around here and seems like it's on par with with the rest of the country. The staff was friendly, the atmosphere was nice, and there were enough people to walking in and out and just hanging around to create a real Barbershop atmosphere. Well, a Korean version at least.