Hair-raising hair, skinheads banned from stage
HANOI - Vietnam has banned skinheads and actors with uncombed or colored hair from performing on stage to preserve "traditional aesthetic values," the culture ministry has announced.
Regulation 47, issued last week, said the ministry had banned "all hairdos that inflict horrors, colorfully painted or dyed hair, uncombed hair, shaved heads, racy and revealing dresses and make up that goes against traditional aesthetic values" from the stage.
The communist country enforces strict censorship of all public performances, but this regulation has made some theater people unhappy.
"It is an individual's taste, and it should not be banned," Truong Nhuan, deputy director of a theater in Ho Chi Minh City was quoted by Thanh Nien (Young People) newspaper as saying, referring to the latest regulation.
One man in Vietnam who probably will not be seen on stage any time soon is 73-year-old Tran Van Hay, who was in the news last week for his snake-like coil of hair, which he claims is 6.2 meters (20 feet) long.
Hay, who supplies traditional medicines to his village in southern Vietnam, is vying to get a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the world's longest hair.
Reuters - July 21, 2004.
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