Living in Another Culture Challenges

Living in another culture creates situations that you don’t have to deal with when you are just traveling through a country, and one that I have experienced with some pain is getting a hair cut where you don't speak the language. Now that it’s two weeks past and the sting has abated, I can report about getting the worst haircut of my entire life.  And for those of you who remember my annual summer “pixie” haircut as a young girl, yes, it’s worse than that.  I have already gotten a bad haircut in India with someone who spoke just enough English to look at my hair and say “Oooh, very thin,” so I took the precaution of getting a personal reference for my next hope, and also called the salon to inquire if he spoke English.  Absolutely.

When I arrived and greeted him, I got nothing but a scared look in return, so quickly retreated to the reception to ask for MY hairdresser, because this one clearly wasn’t.  They assured me he was “the best” and provided someone to translate, and I should have bolted, but thought, how bad could it be, so I told her to ask him to  “…not too cut too much, and don’t make me look like a man.”  Well, based on the output, my input was delivered without the negatives, so it sounded something like “…cut a lot, and make her look like a man.”

Second mistake (first was not leaving) was, sad to admit, I fell asleep after a few minutes.  It was a grueling week, what can I say? The first few minutes, my skinny demon took his scissors in hand and kept slashing and cutting in the air above my hair as if to prepare for the slaughter.  I tried to chalk it up to his preparation routine, but it rather unnerved me, so I closed my eyes.  Next thing I remembered, I woke up staring a man in the mirror, one with a mullet in the back, and nothing anywhere else.  I saw him taking hold of the few remaining locks I had in the front, so I called a halt to the production swiftly.   I’ve been avoiding mirrors, wearing skirts to help people with gender identification and keep telling myself that hair grows. Silver lining for this event is I’ll be saving some money that was earmarked for haircuts in the next few months.

S. and I immensely enjoyed the Planet Earth  BBC series we watched last fall, and now we have another travelogue multi-episode event we highly recommend:  Michael Palin:  FULL CIRCLE.   This chronicles Palin’s (yes, the Michael Palin of Monty Python fame) journey through all the countries bordering the Pacific Rim.  We’ve seen 2 episodes and they were both fascinating, and with Palin as host, intermittently hilarious.  He’s chosen some very intriguing choices for places to explore, and some of it has never been photographed before. If you are still suffering through a winter in your area, or even if you aren’t, I would highly recommend checking your public library for this series. I think there are 9 episodes in all.

Check out more pictures of spring in Rajasthan here:  http://flic.kr/s/aHsjEsiLUX

Everything is in high bloom, and violet blooms just appeared on the tree outside our window, reminiscent of the lovely redbud, but not the same.  Here we are being treated to bougainvillea of every color of the rainbow, and in some cases, 2 colors on the same stalk.  Last week a bright orange tulip-like bloom appeared on leafless trees, and lit up the area with its brilliance. Looks like it’s from the magnolia family; it’s a stunner.