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If you think you are the only one who has those funny, frightening, frustrating experiences in a foreign culture . . . think again! You are not alone. Diane McMurrin, an expatriate living in Kiev, Ukraine recounts her experience at a Ukrainian hairdresser. Her "hair-raising" adventure (from her book, The Splendor of His Music) illustrates one of those unique, "unforgettable" moments experienced by those living in foreign cultures.
A Bad Hair Day in Kiev
. . . I had not had a perm since mid-April, no color or cut since mid-June. My hair was straight and unkempt. What I needed first was a cut and a permanent. Toni (a friend) had recommended the large salon in the center of town. We met outside of the building which had attractive pictures of various hairstyles on the windows. Toni had brought Helen (a Ukrainian friend) along to translate. The three of us had not had lunch, so we purchased ice cream bars on the street. I HOPE THEY DON'T MIND US BRINGING FOOD INSIDE, I thought.We entered the door into a dingy hallway leading past a long room full of hairdressers each at a small, crowded station. Helen led us to the second floor. "Aha! That must have been the training school, and here are the real hairdressers," I thought. The whole building looked like a prison--cement walls in dark green and brown. In the upstairs hall were six chairs, filled with people waiting, forlorn expressions on their faces. We walked right past them into the salon room.
Before me was a young woman about thirty years old, with light blond hair, attractively styled except for the tinge of pink on the back of her head. She spoke no English. Helen told her who I was and reminded her of our appointment. She motioned for me to sit down in her chair, and I did. She looked at my hair, fingering its various lengths, and told me to go back downstairs and get it washed but not to dry it. Then she handed me a plastic bottle with pink liquid in it and a small dish towel.
I walked out into the hall and down the stairs with Helen to another dreary room with a long, low sink against one wall. I looked like a trough with six sets of faucets and sprayers attached. Ladies were leaning over and washing their own hair. I approached the trough and bent over. The collar of my blouse fell forward into my face, getting wet with the hose. It was a trick handling the sprayer, the two faucets, and the bottle of shampoo. There was no shelf so the plastic bottle kept falling over in the bottom of the trough, thereby getting even more watered-down with the water from everyone else's head. Finally, feeling very awkward, I wrapped my hair into the tiny towel and composed myself to go upstairs for my "perm."
When I sat back into the chair, the hairdresser named Larisa dropped a basket of permanent rollers into my lap and indicated that I should hand them individually to her. Then she pulled my head back so that I could not see the basket. As I lifted them out, I saw they were made of gray wood with a thick, black rubber band coming out of one end, made to attach to the carved grooves on the other end.
"I want a gentle curl," I told Helen. "Is there a larger size?" There were no other sizes. But some of the wooden rollers were a little bit larger than the others. Toni and Helen went through the basket to see if they could pick out the ones that might be slightly larger. They handed them to me, and I handed them to Larisa. I felt like Wilma Flintstone in Bedrock having her hair done with cat bones. Besides that, Larisa was sponging my hair in large sections from a bowl of some chemical solution before she put the rollers in. There were no permanent wave papers used and no squeeze bottle.
After the curlers were in place, she just dabbed my curlered head with the same sponge and then covered it with a plastic bag. She held up eight fingers, saying, "Eight minutes under the dryer."
I walked down the same dreary hallway and stairs to an alcove covering twelve metal dryers from the 1940s. Each one had two switches on the front of the hood: Off/On and High/Low heat. I sat under the dryer thinking, What have I done? What have I done?
Meanwhile Larisa was cutting Toni's hair short, and I mean SHORT! It was tapered so closed to the back of her neck, it seemed shaved. But then Toni looks good in anything.
After eight minutes, I went upstairs. Larisa took off the plastic, inspected my curl, and said with fingers spread, "Ten more minutes."
Toni was finished, and Helen said it was time for her to leave, too. I was going to have to finish this alone. What would happen to my hair if I sat under a dryer for ten minutes with these strange chemicals?
It was too late to turn back. At least I won't put it on high heat, I thought. Ten minutes later, I was inspected again. "Five more minutes," Larisa said. Oh dear! Why hadn't I gone to the Dnieper Hotel and spent $60 instead of $6? It's my head, for goodness sake!
Finally, after five minutes, Larisa said, "HARASHA!" (Good!) She led me back down to the shampoo room and pointed me to Maria, a homely little woman who swept the floors. "Five minutes, then ten minutes," she said with appropriate finger motions. Then she left us.
Maria gave me another tiny towel, and led me to the trough. I bent over, and she sprayed hot, and I mean HOT, water on my head for five minutes with one hand while she slapped my curlered head with the other. I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS, I thought. I AM AN IDIOT!
Then she wrapped my head in the towel and led me to the center of the room to a black vinyl chair that had holes in it. The stuffing was spilling out. There was a bowl of liquid beside it on a small table. A sponge was floating in the liquid. Thankful I had not worn a silk blouse, I cringed, wondering what the next step would be. Sure enough, I got "sponged" again. Then she moved my hand up, to hold the towel around my curlers. There I sat, like a statue in this ridiculous position.
As she sat there next to me, neither of us said a word. Embarrassed at the silence, I tried some Russian words I had been learning. "Ten minutes," I said, showing her I understood. "Yes," she said, showing that she understood me. That was the end of that conversation.
Two long minutes later I asked, "What is your name?" "Maria" she replied. "My name is Diane," I said. She nodded. Well, that was the end of THAT conversation. Every minute of silence was an uncomfortable eternity.
After eight minutes had passed, I did say something about Florida, and she said, "New York" mixed with other things I did not understand. That lasted about five seconds. Finally it was time to move.
She rinsed my curlers at the trough, then took me to the black chair and proceeded to remove them, showing me to hold my hands like a bird's nest so she could drape my towel over my hands and have a basket to hold the curlers. There was no mirror in the room to see what I looked like. Finally she put a towel on my head, and put the curlers next to the bowl on the table and went upstairs.
As I sat again in Larisa's chair, I saw myself in the mirror. NOT TOO BAD, I thought, raising my eyebrows. I couldn't tell the condition of my hair, but the curl looked good--not tight, not stringy. Larisa asked me in body language where the permanent curlers were. I pointed that I had left them downstairs. Larisa shrugged as if to say, "Don't you know how to do anything right?"
She began to cut my hair, taking off a half inch in large sections, not the precision cutting the way that American hairdressers do. Then Larisa took a key from her drawer and went to a locked cabinet to get the setting rollers. She brought back a plastic bag filled with rollers of different colors, sizes, and styles--most of them with brushes inside. She washed the combs in a small sink before she set my hair. I handed her the brush rollers--and she fastened them in my hair with large, black bobby pins. Once my hair was set, she held up her ten fingers three times and said something that meant "Thirty minutes."
I went downstairs again. This time I alternated between the high and low heat settings. I was really anxious to get out of there as soon as possible. Next reading: "Ten more minutes." Finally the rollers were taken out. A yellow organza cape was placed around my shoulders, and Larisa began combing my hair, teasing it and playing with it.
Some of her friends came in, and they were laughing and talking. Larisa laughed, too, stopped combing my hair, looked at herself in the mirror, and started restyling her hair with the same comb. Then she went back to combing my hair again. The style was finessed and ready for a light touch of hair spray. She took out a brown squeeze bottle and squirted a film of something that smelled like furniture polish.
That night at rehearsal, many people said that my hair looked absolutely perfect. I knew it needed some hair color now, but I waited three weeks. I was in shock over the whole salon experience, and I wanted to give my hair enough time to recover too.
Diane McMurrin lives in Kiev, Ukraine, with her husband Roger, and son, Matthew, where their work has led to the creation of the Kiev Symphony Orchestra and Choir. The group's next international concert tour will be in the United States in 2000.
For further adventures of this "dynamic trio", read Diane's book, The Splendor of His Music, available from Music Mission Kiev, P.O. Box 56-0578, Orlando, FL, 32856 ($12.95 plus $2 shipping to U.S. addresses).