Ｔｈｅ Ｌｉｏｎ Ｂａｒｂｅｒ ａｎｄ Ｈｉｓ Ｆｉｒｓｔ Ｃｕｓｔｏｍｅｒ

By zhou Rui

Illustrated by Peng XiaoTao

Translated by Mike Liston and Ma Lang

The old lion had nine children. Now they were all grown up.

One day he asked them: \"Now that you are all grown up， what kinds of work do you want to do?\"

The eldest said: \"I want to teach students. I want to be a teacher.\"

Number Two said: \"I want to prepare food. I want to be a cook.\"

Number Three said: \"I want to work with machines. I want to be an engineer.\"

Number Four said: \"I want to build homes. I want to be an architect.\"

Number Five said: \"I want to cure the sick. I want to be a doctor.\"

Number Six said: \"I want to keep financial records. I want to be an accountant.\"

Number Seven said: \"I want to do magic and wear a tall hat. I want to be a magician.\"

Number Eight said: \"All you lions， your manes are a big tangled mess of hair. What you need is a barber and that's what I'm going to be.\"

And finally， the youngest Lion， Number Nine said: \"I still haven't thought of what I want to do. However， I want to do something that nobody else does， but it has to be something that everyone needs.\"

Number Eight Lion who wanted to be a barber got everything ready to do his work. He got scissors， a comb， a razor， a mirror， and a barber's chair which he could spin around and he waited for his customers to arrive.

In Lion City there had never been a barber who could cut the tangled manes of the lions and so Number Eight was the first lion barber that opened a shop. Soon one hundred lions crowded to his shop door.

Number Eight greeted them all and said: \"Don't worry， everyone line up and I will take care of each of you one by one.\"

But since none of the lions had ever had their manes cut before， they all pushed to the back as no one wanted to be first. They each said: \"I don't want to be the first. What if I look terrible? Let someone else be first.\"

The result was that since none of them wanted to be first to sit in the barber's chair， Number Eight never got a chance to cut their hair and eventually all the lions went away except one lion and that was Eight's youngest brother， Number Nine.

\"Now I know what I should do，\" Nine said. \"You can't be a barber if you don't have some hair to cut and so I'm going to be your first customer.\"

And so Number Nine did his job which was to have his mane cut. It was not easy. Because Number Eight had never cut hair before， he did a terrible job cutting Nine's mane and it looked awful. But Number Nine did not care. His job was to be the customer， and so he kept returning to have his mane cut until Number Eight could learn how to cut hair.

Number Nine didn't stop coming back to his brother's shop until there was finally a long line of other lion customers waiting at the shop's entrance eager for Eight to cut their hair.

Number Nine is looking for a new job that nobody else does， but it has to be something that everyone needs.