CITY HALL 1, HONG KONG

                      

“1965, Hong Kong. Masaki Kobayashi releases his movie KWAÏDAN (怪 談), with a magnificent soundtrack by Toru Takemitsu.

That year, we, the petites filles modèles of a Protestant school for girls, were aligned on the stage so that the length of our blue “cheongsam” uniform as well as that of our hair could be examined. The dress: 3 cm below the knee; the hair: 1 cm above the collar.  Much later, I realised that this was to hide the two places Rohmer particularly favoured on the female body - the nape of the neck and the knee.

Our hair was straight, without artificial treatment.  In the schoolyard, we were intrigued by two girls from Form 6 who formed a well-known couple. “He” was built like a boy, “She” was delicate and small. “He” would speak to her attentively, “she” would look up to him in a dreamy fashion. “She” had shiny hair.  Risking every punishment possible, “she” put a scented oil in her hair.  "He" could not live without this smell.  We were told that she was regularly summoned to the Director’s office for this offence. This did not stop her to sin again two days later.

1965. The weaving of memories. The force of sensual memory.

The petites filles modèles waited impatiently for the day when they would have hair as long as in their dreams. The day when, finally, they could freely indulge in the abusive use of this scented oil.”

Extracted and translated from my contribution in “BRUNE, BLONDE: La chevelure féminine dans l'art et le cinéma” (Collectif sous la direction de Alain Bergala et Anne Marquez) Editions Flammarion, 2010.

(originally published on Tumblr Nov 22, 2018)