Chinese men with curly hair (Singapore / China)

I grew up hearing grown-ups refer to Chinese men with curly hair as “untrustworthy”.  

This is presumably because (i) Chinese hair is biologically straight by default, so anything else would be a deliberate decision on the owner’s part, and (ii) only women are allowed the vanity of having their hair permed, thus making men who dare to flout the conventions and have the audacity to perm their hair too shady.

We even have a word for it in my dialect (潮州 Cháozhōu / Teochew):  “kek mor” (曲毛 / “curly hair”).  “Kek mor” applied to any Chinese man would mean:  “Doesn't he look ridiculous?!?”, “And he thinks he looks so handsome!”, “He’s up to no good / too vain to be trusted”.

One of the developments in a mainland Chinese TV drama serial, aired in 2010 but set in 1985, features the high-school daughter being befriended by a group of three youths.  They’d be what is now called NEETs (Not in Education, Employment or Training) in Britain, hanging around all day long.  The synopsis calls them 痞子 (pǐzi / ruffian, lout).

Sure enough, the leader of the gang sports a mop of curly hair!

PS:  I’ve been using the synopsis of the 36 episodes of the TV serial as teaching material.  When I mentioned this “curly hair = shady, dodgy” stereotyping to my Malaysian Chinese student, who is some 30 years younger than I, she confirmed that it is still a prevalent practice, saying Singapore TV dramas often, if not always, depict a slippery character by giving him curly hair.

Update 180219:  My nephew in Singapore confirms that even to this day (the 21st century), they are still “perceived as baddies and/or [men with] BAD TASTE.  And not just in [the] Singapore context.  The guys with curly hair on Korean dramas are usually portrayed as baddies or brainless twerps or baddies that are brainless.”

(Singapore, 1960s and 21st century; China, 1985 and 2010)