End-of-year writing about going bald

End-of-year writing about going bald.

In October 2009, I took on a new assignment and a whole batch of new teammates. Orders came down from the very top to run a secret project that had to be finished in under two weeks, so we could beat to market a Gunbound clone running on Windows from our biggest competitor at the time, FPT. My master named it Project X. Maybe for lack of a better name he picked X, like an unsolved variable in an equation, or like X-Files — classified documents. But I liked to read it as Extreme and Extraordinary, partly to capture the exceptional, out-of-the-ordinary level each individual would have to reach to do the impossible.

The objective was clear, and I quickly laid out the execution strategy for my piece. A few ideas I'd been nurturing in my head for a while, ready for a battle like this, finally got a real trial run. After the meeting I thought everything was ready — only one thing was still missing: spirit. Borrowing the idea from the Romanian football team at the 1998 World Cup who dyed all their heads blonde to show team unity, I wanted to go harder, more intense — shave our heads bald! I rallied two more guys to join in. I was dead set on doing it that very day! Close to 7 PM that evening, the three of us ran out to the closest barber shop, under two hundred meters from the office, to get shaved. Once the resolve is made, no more hesitation! Any barber would do — no picky hunting, as long as we hit the goal.

We walked into the shop and all three ordered full head shaves, and both the owner and the barbers couldn't hide their surprise. Were these guys some kind of street thugs coming in to shave their heads to go chop someone up? Or were they high? Barbers themselves don't enjoy head-shaving work. It's the kind of job that, honestly, doesn't improve your cutting skills at all, and some of them are superstitious and don't want to help anyone become a monk. We had to ask three times and seven times over before they'd agree. With every lock of hair that walked out the door, energy walked in — we lost hair but gained fire. Let's go!

The next day back at work, I was the last one in. My seat was right in the middle of the 120-seat floor to maximize attention, and the moment I walked in, a hundred people burst into applause for the three of us. It honestly felt like the Romanian team walking onto the pitch for the first time in the 1998 World Cup, when the commentators talked more about the team and the nation than about the football. The men, then the women, came by to celebrate, rubbed our heads, patted our shoulders. How could the spirit not soar? That was the fastest and most successful product launch we ever had. Who today even remembers what that FPT game was called? And Gunny? Don't even ask.

Later on a few more guys joined the shaved-head club. As for me, I've kept it going for fifteen years now. The question I get asked all the time is: how often do you shave? Why not grow your hair out again?

Because if I had hair, what would you have to grab?
Because hair is beautiful when it's there, and when it's gone it's even more beautiful.
Because I don't have to worry about my hair anymore.
Because it's cool. Not cool because the weather is hot — cool because my head radiates heat like a furnace from constantly forging steel inside.
Because if I can't wear a monk's robe, at least I can have a monk's head.
Because of what my girlfriend at the time said: I'm not sleeping with some monk!
Because the ladies keep complimenting it, I like to keep it: bald suits you, you look better bald than you did with hair, and you already looked pretty good with hair.
Because curly hair grown long is a pain — let my daughter have that pain.
Because of an image that stuck with me: a tech lead from Tencent who came over to our company to share his experience — muscular, with a gleaming bald head. I wanted to stand in his shoes and inspire the other little Lộcs of the world.

How often? Every Sunday, at 2 PM, I soak in the bathtub listening to Westerners talk tech, philosophy, and satire, and shave my head. In the early years I used Gillette two- and then three-blade razors plus shower gel or shaving powder, and every session ended with my head dotted in blood; one splash of water and my whole brain would go numb. Once in a while, if I was feeling lazy, I'd go to a shop, but few barbers will shave all the way down because their blades are blunt, partly from fear of cutting the scalp, partly because shaving heads doesn't improve a barber's actual haircut skills one bit. So I decided: I'll be the one who hurts me. Then later, once I met my father-in-law, he gave me a four-blade BiC razor that shaved like a dream. I went onto Amazon and ordered forty five-blade BiC cartridges. I've been using them since 2019 and haven't run out.

Fifteen years in, I can now shave my whole head in one hundred eighty seconds (180 seconds — three minutes). This fancy razor lasts six months and still isn't blunt. I've also looked into ways to stop hair from ever growing back, but the bald community says: brother, you're going to be shaving your whole life.

I shave every week just for four hours of feeling my head smoother than a baby's bottom. By the fifth hour my hair is already bristly as bamboo. Brief and scarce is what makes it precious — a little bit of that "ahh" each week is enough fuel to keep chasing it forever.

Dedicated to my external-kung-fu master, who has been teaching me the martial arts since 2002. And a great many other things.