The Toronto Star profiles Jing Kui, who, at age 94, is Beijing’s oldest barber:
“I’ve been cutting hair for almost 80 years,” he says, “ever since I was 15.”
He arrived in Beijing in 1929 from Shunyi, just north of the city, hoping to become an accountant. But accounting opportunities were few, he says, and a local barber liked the fact that Jing could read and write and hired him as an apprentice.
“There was hardly anyone in Beijing at the time,” Jing recalls, lighting up a Double Happiness cigarette and exhaling. “Maybe just a million.”
Beijing’s current population, announced this week, is 17.4 million. [Full text]
Read also an interview with Jing Kui from Al Jazeera.
