It's good to be Andy Wong (
Andy, as he is known by most every starlet and pop diva in the Chinese-speaking world, is a hairdresser. Specifically, he is the creative director of Eros 04, Taiwan's highest-profile and most expensive salon, where he holds court with a retinue of chic, curiously-coifed young things who look up to their boss as if he were some mythic being.
PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
"Andy will see you now," whispers a girl whose frozen hair looks as if she's standing with her back to a strong wind. Eros has a cool green color scheme, down to the polished cement floor. It's Spartan save for the cozily cushioned chairs and the mirrors that reflect famous faces.
PHOTO COURTESY OF L'OREAL
Clients sneak surreptitious glances at one another, trying to look sexy while draped in a plastic smock with tin foil in their hair. There is the slightly rancid scent of a perm in the air.
Andy's voice and handshake are both warm and strong. He exudes the confidence you'd expect of a person at the top of his game. He has designed for photo spreads in Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire and others. He jets between his salon in Taipei and another, Orient 04, in his native Hong Kong.
PHOTO COURTESY OF MARIE CLAIRE
His client list reads like the guest list of a Golden Horse or Golden Melody awards. He is surrounded by beautiful, wealthy and powerful people that come to him in supplication, pay him handsomely and heap praise on him. He has an assistant named Monkey.
PHOTO COURTESY OF MARIE CLAIRE
"Get us a cup of tea, Monkey," he says, and off Monkey scoots. He stares straight ahead while he speaks as if reading cue cards, though his answers sound
anything but rehearsed.
"Beauty is a person's ability to realize their most special characteristics and bring them to the surface," he says. "I only help them realize it, the clients do the real work."
The clients he's speaking of are the film and music personalities looked up to by a billion Chinese youth; Faith Yang (
"They're clients, yes, but I consider them to be friends first."
They're friends, he explains, because they come to him with split ends and ended relationships and he's able to mend both. "There is an amount of psychology to what I do. A new styling can be the same as a new mental perspective, or a new lease on life."
How much will a new lease on life set you back? A straightforward cut is NT$3,600; perming or dyeing can cost upwards of NT$5,000. It is, according to Sarah Chen (
Without a doubt, Andy is the most sought-after hairdresser, not just for individual clients, but for film and video production as well. By rough estimates, he makes upward of US$500,000 a year, which is an improvement over the HK$500 (NT$2,200) per month he made when he first began cutting hair 20 years ago.
But for all the success he's enjoyed in the salon, he is equally talented with a camera in hand as he is a pair scissors and comb. An exhibition of his photos, taken on a recent visit to Xianjiang, is currently on display on the fourth floor of the Asia World Department Store.
The 40-year-old has also chronicled his life in a new book, Andy in Eros (玩美), released by Crown Publishing. A limited amount of free copies are available to visitors of his
exhibition.
If Andy's definition of beauty is to bring that which is most special in person to the surface, then he is surely himself a beautiful person. His own special characteristic is to make people feel good about themselves and leave his salon in a lighter mood, albeit with a lighter pocketbook. None of them seem to mind.
"I love Andy," said one freshly coiffed beauty stepping lightly out of Eros.
Yes, it's definitely good to be Andy.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
RSS