(Small businesses) Country barber, parikkang
Ohmynews has a nice story, actually an essay, on a countryside barbershop in Miryang, Southern Gyeongsan. Perhaps a story about a barbershop cannot be but nostalgic, emphasizing the human side of the place, considering the out-of-time image that ordinary barbershops (ibalso, ibalgwan) (and I don't mean barbershops where women serve men clientele at night). The barbershop is old, older than the present keeper, who came to the place as an apprentice and continued as a keeper when the older proprietor retired.
So I learn that the hair cutting device in the picture is called parikkang, after the French company Bariquand et Marre, which manufactured the first hair scissors (cutters?) that arrived at Korea - and Japan. As far as Google can tell, the company itself is long forgotten except for some engines it supplied for aeroplanes at the time of Wright brothers, and the name of hair clipping devices in Japan and Korea. In Korea there's of course the more formal ibalgi. (Is the spelling Bariquand or Barriquand? There are both forms in French-language pages.) Update. The standard Korean spelling given in the most authoritative (almost wrote authoritarian) web dictionary is parik'ang (barikang 바리캉), which is less closer to the Japanese pronunciation. Nevertheless, the the always untouchable Google gives an overwhelming support to 바리깡 over 바리캉. 바리캉 (&프bariquant) 「명」머리를 깎는 기구. 빗 모양으로 된 두 개의 칼을 겹쳐 그중 하나를 좌우로 움직이면서 머리털을 짧게 깎는다. 제조 회사 이름에서 유래한다. '이발기02'로 순화. ¶머리 깎는 바리캉을 움직이며 뒤통수의 중간쯤으로 깎아 올라가다가 모른 척하면서 쑥 잡아 올리면, 누구든지 가죽이 찢어지는 듯해서 비명을 지르게 되는 것이었다.≪황석영, 어둠의 자식들≫§ A reminiscence of the above-mentioned machine, this time from a hairdressing shop in Sillim-dong, Gwanak-gu, in which I was talking with the keeper woman, when a pitiful man, trying to make a living sharpening knives and other things with blades, came in. A man comes in, in worn clothes, talks a lot, as much as I can understand about knives, selling and sharpening. He finally talks her to allow him to sharpen some of the blades she uses in her machine. It doesn't take long until she makes him to stop, because he does the work all the wrong way. He leaves quickly, saying something like sorry. She has to throw away three blades which cost over 20 000 won apiece when bought new. Nappûn yônggam... Categories at del.icio.us/hunjang: businesskeepers ∙ Koreanlanguage ∙ culturalhistory ∙ modernization |
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