Hair Queen

One of the best methods, in my opinion, of determining just how different the place you are currently living is from the place you know best is to do some of the seemingly mundane, everyday activities that you are familiar with back "home" (wherever that might be). Getting a haircut is just one of these activities; I find that if I have been somewhere long enough to need a haircut, then I truly am living there, not just visiting. I clearly remember my first haircut outside of the United States, in Chabanate, Morocco. The barber was a hip, young Moroccan man who was extremely excited that I had walked into his shop. He showed me to a chair, and then popped the tape of Arabic pop music (which I was kind of digging on, actually) out of his casette player and put on an old Tracy Chapman tape (I guess because that was more "appropriate" music for an American customer or whatever). He took the opportunity to practice his English with me and gave me his email address before I left (I think I may have emailed him once and never heard anything back). As to the haircut itself, he cut it shorter than I expected, using a straight razor on the back of my head, which was subsequently bright red for days. During my stay in Prague, I got two haircuts, one at the trendy Toni and Guy, where not only did I get a quality haircut but also the best scalp massage of my life, and one at a Macedonian barbershop where my friend Martin knew the brothers who ran the place. Both were similar to any haircut I could expect to get in the States.

My Korean haircut experience was a little different. I decided to walk into one of the salons that I pass everyday on my way to work, named "Hair Queen." I was the only customer early on a Saturday morning, and the middle-aged woman who operates the salon did not speak a word of English. My Korean is nowhere near functional enough to stumble my way through explaining what kind of haircut I wanted, so I resorted to paralinguistic measures. I pulled out my passport and pointed to my picture (which is six years old, by the way) and she nodded and smiled, understanding what I meant. She performed the haircut almost completely with an electric clipper and a comb, using a pair of scissors only once, and then only briefly. Afterwards, she gave my hair a rinse, placing a styrofoam mask over my face to prevent water from splashing into my eyes. All in all, I was quite satisfied and I can't wait to see how my students react on Monday.