Born and raised in a Christian family in Bengbu, Central China, I grew up as a 乖孩子 (guāi hái zi), "good kid". I believed whatever my family and teachers told me: be a good girl, study hard, no dating.

Maybe as revenge, or a personal small protest, or perhaps I wanted to support my single-parent mom, or prove to my hoping-to-have-a-son dad, I self-explored “male attributes” in myself. For example, I would town boy myself, refusing to wear sandals, insisting on having pants over dresses or skirts, and even cutting my hair short for years across middle and high school.

A haircut seemed a way for me to define myself. In middle school, I was obsessed with Taiwanese actor Victor Chou and his character in the TV show Black & White. Recommended by another classmate who recently cut her hair short, I went to the hair salon asking for a haircut similar to the character in the show.

Surprisingly, my family was all cool about it. They didn’t recognise the hairstyle, obviously; they are indifferent to pop culture whatsoever. In their mind, short hair is good for a student: less time spent on washing useless hair and unwanted attraction from male peers and more focus on studying. Although short hair required me to eat out and have a haircut once a month, they made no fuss.

Entering university, I decided to grow my hair long when it was finally "okay" to have a boyfriend (Although I still remember my uncle’s talk before I left for uni: “Don’t think uni is the end, you have to focus on study and finding a job. No play around”). Being brought up as a straight woman, I wanted to meet the social definitions of "femininity", or 女性气质 (nǚ xìng qì zhì). The first step was to grow my hair. It was a way to fit the mainstream and navigate a new environment smoothly: be girly, be wanted.

I tried different hairstyles: bob, bangs, no bangs, perm, dyes, shoulder length, and all the way to waist. Until I couldn’t think of any other hairstyles I wanted to try. Until I became indifferent to hair. Until I wanted to buzz my hair.

Moms are special creatures. My mom is traditional. Very. When I tentatively asked her what she thought about girls with tattoos and dyed hair, she said they are whores. I hid my little tattoo on my right arm for as long as I could think of until one day she said to me out of nowhere, “Don’t you have a tattoo already?” Moms just know.

I didn’t go home until my dyed hair almost all faded out, and none of my family said anything. When I couldn’t help but ask them if they’ve noticed, they said yes, and that was the end of the conversation.

That made me realise, perhaps, they’re not that against everything. They warn you to deter you from doing it; but when you actually do it, they accept or make peace with it. They are mature grown-ups; perhaps they just want to avoid confrontations. I don’t know. I wonder if I actually do something outrageous and they find out afterwards what they would say.

One person who did comment was not an adult but my 10-year-old niece. She said in a video call, “绿毛像什么样子 (xiàng shén me yàng zi)?” which translates to “What does that green colour make you look like?” and my sister, who’s 11 years older than me, was not defending me but affirming what her daughter said. But I know she’s not criticising but jealous of me, as the teenage her used to have a “men’s haircut”, often skipped classes, and hung out with “troubled kids”, which all resulted in her getting scolded or even beaten by our parents (more precisely, our dad). Now, I have a short haircut and even dyed my hair, but my parents never commented on it at all.

Fast forward to the time after I moved to London. While I worried about finding a passable-looking place to stay without breaking my bank account and trying to find a job to keep my bank account alive, I reasonably lost interest in how I look.

I stopped using makeup. I didn’t spend much time deciding outfits. I usually forgot to put on jewellery. I still keep my interest in life; God knows how many free exhibitions and activities I’ve been to in London and how much I’m enjoying them.

I just don’t want to bother with my hair anymore. If I can just wash them and get them dry without using a hairdryer and step out of my house without brushing, tying, or doing anything to my hair, what a life that would be.

I guess that’s part of the thing that I want to be free. Free from my head. From outside to inside.

Now that I’ve tried pretty much all kinds of hairstyles that I could think of, the only thing left to do with it seems to just buzz them altogether.

Again, I tried to test the water with my mom. Yes, as a filial daughter brought up by a traditional mom, you do ask permission, if you can get one. “What do you think if I shaved my head?” I asked casually. In Mandarin Chinese, we use “shave” 剃头 (tì tóu), referring to all haircuts that involve razors or clippers. “Dare you do it, I’ll disown you,” my mom seemed serious. She made sure a few times that I wouldn’t do it.

Well, technically I didn’t, at least, not at first. I went to a Brazilian hairdresser with a reasonable price, and my only request was to cut my hair short. As short as possible. “Pixel cut?” He tried to suggest hairstyles that might match what I was looking for, while mispronouncing “pixie” as “pixel.” Well, smart Google understood his typo just fine.

I loved the result. It’s a combo of clippers and scissor cut, and it felt chic. I kept asking him to go shorter because I wanted something different.

I indeed felt different. It was December, and I felt chill on my scalp when I walked out of the salon. It seems like always a battle to get a very short haircut as a woman. Rather than explaining the look, it becomes more like a fight about gender expression. Hair is gendered in salons; it’s either a men’s cut or women’s cut. It’s either a feminine or masculine hairstyle. “I can’t make it even shorter,” “It doesn’t look good on you,” “It doesn’t work that way,” “That’s too boyish.” “That’s not feminine.” I got told off by so many hairdressers.

When I appeared on camera calling my mom, she was speechless. “Who’s this? Which little boy? 哪个小男孩? (něi gè xiǎo nán hái)” To be fair, I do look like I did when I was a baby with my birth hair shaved at the age of 1. It’s a Chinese tradition to shave your baby’s first hair, 剃胎毛 (tì tāi máo), to get rid of misfortune and encourage thicker hair growth.

She didn’t look happy, but also didn’t really disown me. She’s been calling me “my little boy” from time to time, and gradually, “I start to think it looks alright,” she finally said.

I have got questions from people around me. “Why did you cut your hair?” “Are you lesbian?” While learning how to deal with the probe, I’m also reconsidering my identity. Can a haircut make you queer? Am I trying to be queer by looking queer? Am I queer-questioning? Or am I just questioning identity in general?