Every now and then it’s important to mix things up. Try something new. Experiment. For months I’d been going to the same barbershop—showing the same picture to the same barber, paying the same price, and leaving the same tip. I’ve had my fair share of bad haircuts, so once you find a spot you like, you tend to stick to the script. However, it was time to explore. I looked around and decided on 4RAU's Deluxe branch on Điện Biên Phủ in District 3—also known as Tiệm Tóc Của Chú Tư (Uncle Tu’s Hair Shop). The pictures online looked sharp and professional, but I didn't just want a good haircut. I wanted to devise a small experiment with no clear hypothesis, hoping the new space might lend me a subject to dive deeper into.
I arrived early, a quarter to 1 pm on a hot and humid Friday afternoon in May. The lounge area was neat and tidy, with two others already seated and being groomed. The shop had a distinct wabi-sabi design—cracks on the wall revealing the raw brick and stone beneath. I sat down for only a moment before I noticed the bookshelf in the corner.
On display were a few carefully curated titles on streetwear icon Virgil Abloh, hip-hop style, vintage sneakers, and contemporary Japanese graphics. However, it was a pop-up book that caught my attention. Any time I venture around Saigon, I’m always looking for the subtle details owners add to their spaces, treating them like subliminal messages meant for their guests. At HÔM, it was the hanging paper-mache anatomical heart. At Thirty 59, it was the glowing red string of light. At CieL Dining, it was the chaotic graffiti on the walls. Here the message was A Tour of the Waterfalls of the Provinces by Hokusai.
The paper pop-up mechanics of the book brought the woodblock print to life, casting the scenery in dramatic, three-dimensional detail. The Japanese artist is globally famous for The Great Wave off Kanagawa, and heralded in certain circles for his erotic octopus drawing, The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife. But the waterfall series belongs right alongside his greatest hits. There is an otherworldly, almost eerie quality to the work. The print standing up in 3D was the Kirifuri Waterfall at Mount Kurokami. “Kirifuri” translates to “falling mist,” and Hokusai drew the cascade split into thick, pouring tendrils that split and spread down the rock face like a living, shifting creature. However, it was the quote printed below the artwork that made the biggest impression on me:
“I became an artist, and from fifty on began producing works that won some reputation,” Hokusai said, “but nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention.”
Nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention, I mouthed the words to myself. How beautiful. How terrifying. How humbling.
“Anh ơi.”
The barber, Linh, called me over to the chair, pulling me out of my musing. I climbed into the heavy leather seat, surrounded by the hum of clippers, music vibrating through the speakers, and the sharp scent of hair tonic. I took out my phone and showed her a handful of reference pictures of what I had in mind. She studied the screen, squinting slightly, before tilting my head to evaluate my hair from different angles. Noticing a bit of hesitation in my voice, she confidently made the decision for me. Linh was a true professional. As the first locks of hair drifted down to the floor, my initial anxiety faded into the rhythmic, crisp snip of her shears. After the cut came the wash. I leaned back into the washing sink as the cool water melted away the oppressive midday Saigon heat. She finished by blow-drying and sculpting the cut with a touch of pomade, navigating the entire sequence in exactly one hour flat. Right on the dot. But the entire time, I sat there and enjoyed the relaxing vibes of the shop, my mind kept drifting back to Hokusai.
Being in an entirely new environment allowed my brain to form connections it never would have on my predictable autopilot routine. Mastery takes forever. Not 20 hours, not 1,000, not 10,000. Forever, with a capital F. And if mastery requires Forever, one must adopt a beginner's mind over and over again. Hokusai secured a global legacy in his fifties, yet dismissed it because he played for keeps, not applause. He relied entirely on an inner scorecard rather than the hollow outer scoreboard the rest of the world compares themselves with. The outer scoreboard cares about how your life looks to others; the inner scorecard only cares about how well you are actually playing the game. His philosophy asks you to wipe the slate clean every single day and simply begin anew.
By 2pm, it was time to go. Feeling proud of my decision to put my trust in the hands of a stranger, I decided to take a stroll across the city—something I rarely do in the middle of the day. In retrospect, walking through the high-thirties heat dressed in all black probably wasn’t the smartest idea, but the leisurely trek through Tao Dan Park to the Central Post Office gave me time to process the morning. Moving past the ancient, towering trees of the park while the chaotic swarm of Saigon motorbikes roared along the perimeter, I realized Saigon itself is the perfect setting for ongoing experimentation. Every day presents an opportunity to try something new.
When I got home, I stumbled across a concept by writer Anne-Laure Le Cunff called “Tiny Experiments”—the belief that running purposeful, actionable, trackable trials allows you to gather data about your life and the world around you without the crippling fear of failure. Beyond that, these small pivots drastically increase your surface area for luck. I had conducted my own tiny experiment while visiting Tiệm Tóc Của Chú Tư without even knowing I was following Cunff’s advice.
Humans are wired to escape uncertainty; new sounds, flavors, and perspectives naturally stoke fear. But leaning into tiny experiments—trying a new barbershop, taking an unplanned walk through a park, and writing about it afterward—shatters those rigid cognitive scripts. It exposes the unpolished ideas we carry and strips our thinking back to the essentials to see what details remain.
Much like the wabi-sabi walls at Tiệm Tóc Của Chú Tư, where the chipped plaster intentionally reveals the brick beneath, these tiny experiments chip away at our stubborn habits to reveal our baseline curiosity. We don't need a perfectly planned itinerary all of the time. We just need the raw material of the present moment. The interesting part is that you can play this game forever. In repeating random experiments, you stumble into unplanned spaces, challenge the scripts you normally clench, and alter your perspective on different subject matters entirely.
I was incredibly grateful to have stumbled into Tiệm Tóc Của Chú Tư, met Linh, and learned about Hokusai. It served as another reminder of why Saigon is such a phenomenal city. You truly never know what, or who, you are going to discover, or which pieces of history will pop up and direct your attention to the closest bookshelf.
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