MAKING WAVES

"Do you color?" inquired the sophisticated British voice on the other end of the line.

"Do we color? and how!" replied the macho man in a red-tinted crew cut, tight T-shirt pinned with a rhinestone lizard brooch, and plaid-striped pants unseen to the women on the phone. All she could make out was a raspy New York accent that would have seemed more at home in Long Island City than in the Laos.

The street-savy voice belongs to flamboyant Souknath Chantharath (nicknamed "Eng") a 37-year-old Lao-American returnee who had fled the country in the mid-1970s and is now owner of the fashionable New Wave Hair Studio.

The newly opened salon on Pangkham Road (opposite the Phangkham Guest House) is Eng’s second salon. The first was opened in his home near Wattay airport two years ago, but demand was so great that Eng had to train up his relatives and open a second shop downtown.

Now expats, who constitute 50% of his clients, don’t have to fly to Bangkok or Singapore for a descent haircut. And while US$7 may seem like a lot by local standards, the price is little more than the tips Eng used to make when he used to cut hair at Vidal Sassoon’s in LA where he trained. Actually Eng’s loyal customers consider it a bargain for this world-class treatment they get which includes shampoo, massage and Eng’s special gift of gab and local gossip. And if that weren’t enough, Eng has just opened a quality paperback leading library and plans to open a cafe soon. Will bagels he next?

Does he have any plans to go back to New York?

"What, and get mugged? Forget it," he replies with a confident shrug. "When I first came back in ‘88, it was so depressing--everybody had the same haircut. Now you gotta be crazy to leave this place. It’s heaven on earth."

For coloring, cuts or a permanent new wave, call Eng at New Wave for an appointment. Tel. 216542.

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