Tuesday, 2 December 2008

Hair Violation

I never realized that I considered my hair to be a sacred space until someone violated it. When I was at my junior high enkai (party on the floor with teachers), I was sitting on the floor and the server kept coming back to me with offers of more liquor. Hot sake, cold sake, old sake, new sake and offered to mix things for me and being SUPER NICE! I LOVE the service here in Japan, it's incredible. Anyhow, so I was sitting there chatting with a fellow teacher when the server comes up behind me, lifts my hair off of my shoulders and runs both hands through it and starts petting me. It wasn't just a piece of hair, but she violated the full length and breadth of it . I just froze and tried not to make a face, but the teacher I was chatting with, saw my face and started laughing. I think the server felt me freeze and saw the teacher laughing and got really embarrassed and said sorry, sorry and left. I kept telling here "it's ok, daijobu" but she didnt come back the rest of the night until the end. The teacher I was with said that she had never seen anything like that and thought maybe the lady liked Americans. As a side note, my hair was curly that day, and people are more obsessively curious with my hair when it's curly. Anyhow, at the end of the night I talked to her again, since I felt bad that I embarrassed her, and she called me a pretty doll and blah blah. This is not the first time someone has called me a doll. Although I get called a doll, that doesn't mean I am one; perhaps that's what bothers me the most. If I was a doll, I would be a china doll because unfortunately I don't like to be touched. (That also explains why unfortunately I can't get manicures or pedicures.)