Hair today, gone tomorrow as old salons close in Shanghai

Chen's father was a barber as well, and his given name, Mingxing, actually means celebrity in Chinese.

Chen Danyan, a writer and a widely recognized spokesperson for Shanghai, described the Shanghai ladies' attachment to their hairstylists and tailors, as "closer than with their husbands".

"The relationship typically straddled generations, extended to daughters and sometimes even granddaughters," Chen wrote.

Chen, the barber, boasted that among his customers, there was one family that had left their hair to him for over four generations.

"The best barber is the one who knows what (type of) hairstyle you want before you tell him. It's a tacit agreement achieved through decades and familiarity," said one of Chen's customers surnamed Fan, who has been with him for about 20 years.

However, Chen says that the bond between customers and barbers is unlikely to carry on with the younger generation, as young people go for trendier Japanese and Korean hairstyles.

Last summer, Shanghai's Xinghuo Hairshop was shut, leaving Nanjing as one of two survivors from a golden age.

Slowly, an era characterized by white capes, manual barber chairs and generous tipping is dying.

Strangely, this is one industry that has been left alone by foreign investors - 90 percent of the hair shops in China are local business says Chen.

A major reason may be the belief that only Chinese barbers know how to cut Chinese hair, which is thicker and harder than that of foreigners.

Also, the high turnover of staff at private businesses nowadays makes it quite impossible to have bonds between barbers and their customers.

One "detail" that Chen takes great pride in is in white towels. With a tradition of offering a warm white towel to every customer, the shop throws away an average of 300 towels every month.

"But young people care little about bonds or white towels. All they are looking for is a trendy hairstyle or color that lasts no more than one month," says Chen.