Hair do

It's all very well having 'adventures' in a foreign land, but most of us are not so keen when it comes to someone messing with our hair. An Australian friend of ours in China went in for a haircut and came out with an embarrassing mullet - which ended up with her having to have her hair cut really short. I had my own haircut hassles in China, as you can read here.

All of the Turkish women I've seen - those who don't have their heads covered - have beautiful hair, they are obviously very particular about what happens to their hair, so that should give me a great deal of confidence about getting my hair done.

The one slightly odd thing here in Turkey is that all services are pretty much men's domain. For instance, there are no waitresses - only waiters - and the hairdressers are all men. There is a large hairdresser's opposite one of the classrooms where I teach, and I have spent many bored moments watching 2 or 3 men gathered around each female customer playing with her hair endlessly ... I guess I could get used to that.

All the same, I found myself very nervous about going to a hairdresser here. I pulled out my phrase book and mastered the words for cut and perm, and I can tell the difference between a men's hairdresser (erkek kuaför) and a women's one. And there are certainly lots to choose from - yeah, maybe that's the real problem, choosing ...

So, finally, yesterday I asked our Turkish colleague, the delightful Alvin, to take me to a hairdresser's and help me make an appointment, check on the price, and make sure it was clear what I wanted. We went into a little shop that's almost the closest hairdresser to our apartment - there is another one a mere ten metres away, but this one is about thirty metres away (the closest of two that are right next door to each other.)

We went in and Alvin started talking to a thin, slightly sickly-looking guy. I caught my breath - someone nearby was badly in need of a shower, the odour was overpowering despite all the other smells in a salon. Alvin talked with him, and arrangements were made. He wanted to know if I wanted a cheap Turkish perm (about 70 lira) or a more expensive longer-lasting European perm. I opted for the European one, but staggered a bit when I was told it would be 150 lira - that's even more expensive than in Australia! He immediately knocked it down to 100 lira, supposedly on the promise of cash payment. So it was agreed, and I nervously set myself to return at about 11am.

When I walked in there this morning at eleven, Mr Stinky was nowhere in sight, nor anyone else who had been in the shop yesterday when arrangements were made. I hesitated - there was a young lady looking at me quizzically ... was this my Chinese experience revisited? A moment later a young man came running in the door, and I thought I recognised him from yesterday. He motioned to a chair, so I sat - but I wasn't at all sure that he knew why I was there.

[Now maybe I should explain: I have had half a dozen perms before (in Oz), so I had certain expectations. They always wash your hair thoroughly first, to make sure there are no chemicals there which might interfere with the perm chemicals. Then they do the cut. Then the rollers are put in, and the perm stuff trickled over. A timer is set and left ticking while the stuff works, and you get a coffee and a magazine to look at. When the timer rings they run over and check your curls, and then you go to the sink for a rinse and some perm stopper liquid. Then there is some thorough rinsing and finally some styling and maybe a blow-dry ... ]

An older guy showed up and started putting my hair up in clips. He had a small plastic container of perm rods - not the quantity they usually use in Oz. I was a little worried, so I phoned Alvin and asked her to talk with the man and check that he knew what I wanted. All was apparently in order. So it was time to just relax and let him get on with it his way.

He didn't wash my hair, nor cut it. He just started putting in the rods, and drizzling the perm liquid on as he went. As time passed he got more and more enthusiastic with the liquid - maybe he was afraid he wouldn't be able to use up the whole bottle. He would grab a hank of hair, drizzle some stuff on, and then mix it around with his hands before winding it onto the rod. With my long thick hair it took him a whole hour to get the rods in.

Suddenly Mr Stinky turned up - wearing a fresh, clean shirt and with no bad smell. He came over and checked on the progress of my treatment, and seemed very pleased. But I still sat there for a whole hour before they decided I was done. By this time, in the absence of any magazines to read or anything else to do, I had pulled my little phrasebook out of my pocket and was deeply engrossed in trying to learn a few phrases. I just about leapt out of my skin when Mr no-longer-Stinky suddenly said "Come here, please." I have no idea how long he and the other guys had been working out together what to say to me in English. He looked suitably pleased when I jumped up and went across to the sink.

As they were rinsing and undoing the rods, the main guy kept smiling and looking really pleased. He did that thing they do here to indicate something is really tasty or beautiful - putting all the fingertips together and then shaking the hand up and down.

Finally it was time for the hair cut. I had wanted to have six months worth of growth removed, but I could only persuade them to take off less than an inch despite all my finger-waving. Women are supposed to wear their hair long anyway, and he was right in that the perm had shortened it up a bit.

Of course its all stiff now with the styling gel they put in it. I'll wait and see how it is when I get up tomorrow.