When’s the last time you saw a back alley barber, or one plying his trade along the five-foot way? It’s certainly been a long time since that trade was a common sight. This weekend, you’ll have a chance to catch one – with a haircut too – at the Singapore Art Museum.

Streetside barbers are one of the vanished trades that have been brought back by the National Heritage Board’s Heritage Along Footpaths project. Jerome was there to observe the barber at work at the Singapore Art Museum last week:

Once upon a time, in a Singapore we have long forgotten, you probably wouldn’t bat an eyelid seeing someone having his hair cut on the five-foot-way. These days, the five-foot-way, sidewalk, roadside or back alley barber, as he might be known as, is less of a common sight in a Singapore that has abandoned its previous life on the streets for the more comfortable air-conditioned premises we partake of most of our daily activities in. The sidewalk barber did made a reappearance at two locations last weekend in a part of Singapore that I will from my previous interactions always associate with that Singapore they were commonly found in.

You can read about the five-foot way barber here. The barber will be at the Singapore Art Museum and the Stamford Arts Centre this weekend, but come early if you want to have a haircut! Apparently the queue starts even before business began at 10!