Bad hair day

I don't know much of anything about the way they cut hair in China, but I'm pretty sure this isn't the standard way of doing things. At least I hope not.

A Chinese hair salon has been shut down and fined 500,000 yuan ($71,280) for holding two customers hostage and charging wildly excessive fees for haircuts, a newspaper reported on Monday.

College students Zhang Yi and Yuan Sha Sha went for a haircut at Baolou International Beauty Salon in Zhengzhou, in the central province of Henan, expecting to pay the 38 yuan ($5.42) advertised on the window.

But when the barbers were done, they produced a joint bill for 12,000 yuan ($1,700), enough to make anyone's hair curl, the Beijing News reported.

"After borrowing from 16 people, the two were only able to come up with 9,800 yuan and it wasn't until after 10 pm were they allowed to leave the hair salon," it reported.

The amazing thing about this is that it's not the first time this has happened:

One was slapped with a bill for 4,776 yuan when she came in for a haircut last September. In December, another customer opted for a 68 yuan haircut, but was asked to pay 5,670 yuan.

Um, didn't anyone think to alert the police the first time these people held their customers hostage and demanded exorbitant amounts of money from them? Or at least the Chinese version of the Better Business Bureau?