Ex-student Adam, commenting on the bowl haircut (à la Trappist monk’s pate) of a boy in a funny video, said he’d never had one, but he did go bald once during a DIY session at home: “I was being petulant, wriggled and so I was left with a bald patch, so Dad shaved everything off.”
This reminds me of what happened to my mother’s cousin.
His father said to him one day, when he was about 5, “Hey, young man, would you like a botak hairstyle?”
(“botak” is “bald” in Malay, pronounced “bor tahk”.)
My mother’s cousin was intrigued and agreed to it. Sat down among the rubber trees (they lived on a rubber plantation in Tampines on the eastern side of Singapore), and let his father start on his head.
Halfway through, he decided to inspect his head for the results. Touched his scalp and discovered, to his horror, that half of it was completely bald.
He leapt up and said, “If this is a botak, then I don’t want a botak! I don’t want a botak!!” and ran off into the rubber grove.
His father sat back to wait patiently for him to return: “He won’t want to go around with half a bald head, so he’ll be back.” (Reminds me of me in blog Basket buying in Arab Street.)
(London; Singapore, 1940s)
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