For some reason, that phrase kept popping into my head the last three to four days.
It could be, since it's spring break, I have spent more time outside of my normal English bubble. Yes, it is spring break. And yes, unlike most spring breaks I experienced in Ohio, it has actually felt like spring. Except today. It's chilly and dreary! But that has nothing to do with my earlier statement.
On Saturday, I went to get my annual straight perm.
I had never heard of such a thing until moving to Taiwan. In the USA, there is a similar treatment called the Brazilian, but it supposedly only last three months and can be quite expensive.
After living here for eight months, I realized I needed to do something. The older I get, the more frizzy and out of control my hair gets. Add to that mixture the high humidity of living on a subtropical island.
In Ohio, I could straighten my hair every morning and it would stay. This, I could handle. Here, when I straightened, it was frizzy again as soon as I walked outside. The upside of this- wrinkled clothes, no worries. By the time I walk the five minutes to my classroom, the wrinkles are gone.
Great for clothes, but not so great for out of control frizziness.
The above picture was taken our first Christmas in Taiwan.
So, I decided to give it a try. One of the best decisions I have ever made. On the mornings I swim before school, I just shower and go. There's no need to blow dry or straighten. No more frizzies- bring on that humidity! Which by the way very rarely drops below 60 percent in the winter and during the hot summers, it ranges between 70 and 90 percent!
But once again, this is not what this post is really about. It's about my agreeing to things that I don't know what I am agreeing to.
For example, to get my hair done, I go to Nina's. She speaks some English and has a few employees that do as well. That, of course, doesn't mean I am always serviced by one of the English speaking stylists. But, there is enough English that I have successfully had my hair, straightened and cut once a year.
This past Saturday, the beginning of spring break, I made my annual trek to Nina's. After I got all welcomed and settled in, a nice young man came to wash my hair. He asked a lot of questions in the process. I knew they were questions because they ended with the word ma. Ma is kinda like a verbal question mark.
Using the contextual clues, I think I know what he was asking.
Are you comfortable?
Can you scoot up a little?
Is the water the right temperature?
So to these questions, I answer how. How is like the English ok. So I said ok to everything he was asking me.
And that got me wondering....
What if he was asking if I wanted a snake's blood cocktail?
What if he was asking if I wanted my hair cut short?
Or colored purple?
Yikes!
This could be a problem!
Well, I am happy to report that my hair is not purple or overly short. It is straight, though.
It's such a relief when I walk out looking how I envisioned I would look at the end of the four hour process and 4,500NT (US $150) poorer.
Last year, as I got my hair straightened, Abbi went the opposite way- curly! Her Chinese is way better than mine, so I am sure she wasn't on the edge of her seat the whole time.
On Monday, I had a similar experience.
This time at the hospital.
I needed an endoscopy to monitor some little polyps in my stomach. No big deal, except in Taiwan, this is a procedure the patient is awake for! Yes, you read that right.
I did it last year and survived, barely!
I gag brushing my teeth and you expect to not swallow, not gag, while you push a camera down my throat? Our bodies are programmed to expel foreign material!
Yep. Not me.
They ended going up through the nose and then down.
Not an experience worth repeating.
This time, I asked to be put out. Asleep. Unconscious. Unaware.
Guess where that procedure is done?
The Children's Hospital.
The nurses all giggled with nervousness when they realized I was an adult and not the child they were expecting. And once again, the questions just kept on coming.
I hope I answered them correctly.
I must have, because half an hour later, I was awake again and ready to walk out. All my limbs were intact. Everything seems to be in working order.
But, as you can tell, communication is a problem.
I live my life inside an English bubble. When I am outside my bubble, people want to practice their English with a native speaker. Except those, of course, who want to cut my hair or put a camera down my throat.
They like Chinese.
Go figure!
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