The First Global Haircut

My hair has been bothering me for weeks. The last time I had it cut was in early August, and recently, it’s been really long, dry, and annoying. It’s been in a ponytail way more than usual.
Thursday was the final straw. My hair was so scraggly and gross that I made up my mind to get it cut. I had asked my friends here where to go, and had Paul print out some pictures. I was set.

I hate getting my hair cut to begin with. I don’t like making small talk with someone working on my head. I don’t like worrying about what I’ll look like after it’s over. But going under the scissors in Korea, I was worried because I couldn’t communicate with the person cutting my hair, and I was way more worried about how I would look in the end. After I gave the stylist the picture and sat down in a chair, I knew that there was nothing else I could do. So I waited.

I couldn’t really tell what was going on as the one lady cut and the other stylists looked on and laughed (whether at me or at the television, I’m not sure). I could kind of feel where the scissors were hitting in the back, and it seemed about right, but I wasn’t quite sure – I knew that that wasn’t a very good indication. After the one woman finished cutting, two women dried my hair simultaneously. That’s when I noticed all the hair on the floor – big, long chunks of hair. The second woman then took a straightener and spent what felt like hours painstakingly styling it. The heat from the striaghtener, combined with my growing suspicion of what had happened made me feel rather hot and sick.

It was over. Shaking, I ran my hand through my hair. And again. Two hands felt what was on the back of my head. My heart, which had been slowly sinking, anchored itself in my stomach.

I paid (they charged double for the fifteen minutes with the straightener, which annoyed me) and left. I walked home quickly, forgetting the other errands on my list for the night. At home, I went directly to the washroom and Paul quickly followed. We both looked in the mirror.

I’ve never had such a bad haircut. In addition to being three (three!!!) inches shorter than what I had requested, the shape was a sort of 80’s rock star combined with a bad version of ‘the Rachel.’ Most of my hair is chin length or just longer, while a thin layer sticks out underneath. It’s a big balloon of hair nestled in a messy array of spikiness. In the back, the thin underlayer is shaped into an extra long tip, reminiscent of a ‘rat tail’. The rat tail is the only piece that is at the just-below-shoulder-length that I had asked for. And before you tell me that short hair isn’t that bad, I should mention that because of mandatory hair lengths for middle school students, I now had the same hair as my students. In a really, really weird shape.

As I stood there in shock, expressing my frustration and disbelief, I remembered that I own a pair of hair scissors. I began chopping the weird long pieces in the hope that I could fix some of what had gone wrong. Paul stood by and held my hand mirror, and when I couldn’t reach the rat tail, he cut it. It was one of those special moments when you know you really trust someone. Or that your hair is just that bad.

In the end, I can get it into a ponytail, and that’s where it’ll probably stay for a while – at least if Paul has his camera out. He says it’s not that bad and that I’m still pretty. And that’s why I keep him around.