Be Simple, Be Proud, Adventures in Black Hair. . .

So, the reoccurring question I received before I flew off for my Asian invasion was,
     
"What are you going to do with your hair?"

Thankfully I am pretty artistic in all areas of life. I've had practice "playing" with my hair since the second grade. I knew I would have to do my own up keep while living in Asia, because I did my own hair in Chicago. The only time I went to the hair salon was for a trim. However, there is the bigger question of, "Where will these hair products come from, so that I CAN do my hair?" When I arrived in Saigon spring of 2010 I had kinky twist. I made the mistake of leaving them in too long, so upon untwisting the kinks, I also took out my fine hair close to the forehead. *Sigh* Won't be doing that again. Afros, extreme heat, and motor bike helmets do not work well together. I resorted to my method of flat twisting. Dividing my hair into sections, and twisting it back, in a cornrow-like fashion. Again, I know I'm one of few that actually knows how to do their own hair. But, ironically one of the best things you can do to your hair is nothing. Do not over process it with chemicals, do not over comb it the wrong way, do not dry it out with blow dryers and flat irons, do not stress your scalp with tight braids and extensions. Just let it be.

Charlotte Hess, check her out at isobelandcleo.com

I could not not remember my friend, knit wear designer, Charlotte Hess who taught me two lessons on the fashion design trip in South America: BE SIMPLE, BE PROUD. "Usually when I do nothing to my hair it grows", stated Charlotte as she used my Carol's daughter hair oil for the first time. Charlotte rocks a "Straight-Up"afro. I call it "straight up" cause it sticks straight up off her head. On this particular trip to Brazil and Argentina, Charlotte rocked the "straight-up" with long dramatic chunky necklaces, one of African amber, and big Coco Chanel type sunglasses, simple and proud. Did she care that the yellow amber and her deep chocolate skin produced a stark contrast, or that her hair sort of resembles a space ship and caused serious stares from the Argentinians?? Nope. Perhaps being one of artistic taste helps, but the point was she was doing her thing, rockin her style. It didn't matter that she was in Argentina, New Zealand, Florida, the moon, etc. She didn't let American racist ideals or European standards of beauty haunt how she will wear her hair. She let her natural beauty shine.

"Kareem Abdul-Jabar-Baha" of KL can do my hair any day!

Back to my adventure of tending to my locks. After being in this part of the world for a year and a half I found Kuala Lumpur to be a source of African hair types. On my black girl expedition with Kia we spent a weekend in KL, shopping and getting our hair did. Kia manage to pay only $30-$35 for a shampoo-wash-blow dry that took 4 hours. (Mind you the woman servicing Kia was Malaysian, not Black) I got cornrows which took 45 minutes and paid double. Such is life. I also experienced an African hair braider from Hong Kong who came to Ho Chi Minh to work on some clients heads last year. This lady works in the only official hair braiding shop in Hong Kong called Zucoma. If you're in the area check it out, but they are pricey, for Hong Kong. I had a hard time remembering the url, so instead try this: www.salonchandler.com, they seem to have professional products and a Black man handling a blow dryer. Coming back to Ho Chi Minh I was determined to find a hair braider. With all the African men here, there has to be a woman somewhere doing her own hair. I mingled with the Nigerians at church and got in touch with a Nigerian lady in District 10 of HCMC. She did a great job with braids and has healthy techniques to minimize breakage. No salon for her, I talked to people who know people and met in the room she is renting. But my main concern while living here was getting my ends trimmed. Trimming the split ends minimizes breakage, and minimized breakage = longer hair. Well little did I know my hair adventure was about to take an interesting twist. I decided to try the steamer machine at a local nail salon. In the back of the nail shop is a small hair station with the steamer machines and further back in another room is an area where you can get your hair washed. I used my own deep conditioner and everything was going good until it was time to blow dry my hair. I literally had 2-3 people in my head. The owner of the shop came and asked, "Is this natural???" me,"YEAH this is MY hair!" It really perplexed them to know that someone could have hair as curly as mine. I must say I had fun teaching the ladies at Nghia Beauty how to do my hair, and l loved that they were all eager to learn, and very careful. As I'm sitting in the hot seat (literally with two blow dryers on my head) I notice a Black lady is getting her pedi/mani and looking over at me with a "What-in-tha-world" expression on her face. Once I am finished, they even flat ironed my hair, I'm about to leave, but decide to get a mani and just happened to sit next to the Black lady. I was not going to be social because she "looked" Brazilian. There aren't too many Black American people 'round these parts, so why bother? Well I decided to bother anyway. Turns out she's an American stewardess from Texas, she has been living in Asia for 16 years, SIXTEEN YEARS. Whoa, back up. 16 years. In Hong Kong to be exact.

"I had to go natural because I did not trust anyone to use a relaxer on my hair, and I couldn't find the right products. I noticed you were getting a blow out. There are a few places here that can straighten our hair pretty well, one is real expensive but good, the other cheaper and decent."

Kia explains, "Straighten, with Ce-ram-mic, not Metal!"

Like an angel that had fallen out of the sky, she just increased my HCMC experience by a thousand. I couldn't believe it. She had stop overs in Ho Chi often, so after SIXTEEN years of being over here, I guess I would've discovered and chosen the right salon as well. I should host my own personal training session. I checked out the salon the stewardess recommended, and it is legit, and they definitely know how to work a blow dryer, lol. It's YKC on Dien Bien Phu St. Of course their styling skills need some work, but for a good condition and trim, I don't mind paying 800,000 dong to get my hair right. Below is the result of the scavenger hair hunt in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Big Thanks to Tarek for his Algerian connections!

"Kareem's" salon is male-only, he calls his braid lady. . .

We find another lady, she was okay.

Kia gets a blow out . . .

. . .4 hours later, turns out nice!

love that hat girl!

For the readers that are not aware, the hat my header is wearing is called a "nón lá" in Vietnamese. It is worn primarily by older women, though you may find some men wearing one while working in a farm. I do not know the history of the hat accept that its style, like most cultural paraphenalia in Vietnam, is inspired from Chinese culture. According to my students, normal people do not wear the nón lá, lol. In other words, the younger generation does not find the nón lá fashionable. But, it has a very practical purpose. It keeps your face cool during the hot sunny afternoons, and it will keep you dry when it rains. I enjoy seeing the ladies in their nón lá hats. It keeps Vietnam authentically Vietnam. In no other country in the world, can you walk through a metropolitan city and see "cityfolk" wearing a nón lá. 

And, about it being fashionable. . . well I'm sure there are many modern examples of Western designers taking cues from the shape of the hat. But I will tell you this story: One day on my way to work I am sitting on my motorbike waiting for the light to turn green. I had just left my apartment and turned right after crossing over the bridge, connecting Binh Thanh to District 1, but still a bit far from what I consider "downtown". I look to my right and spot a young women wearing her nón lá. There are many crazy things happening on the street that can grab your attention, but the way this lady wore her nón lá was particularly funny. Dressed in a typical over-all pajama-like outfit, the lady walks confidently down the street in bright fushia. Atop her head is a nón lá, not plain and covered in plastic like the market sellers, no, she rocks a colorfully embroidered nón lá, like the one a tourist would get in Mui Ne (like the one hanging on my wall, you can see it if you skype me). Let me also mention the color of her pajama-jammy-jam matches the embroidered flowers on her conical crown. Hey, you know what they say, if you're gonna do it, do it with pride!

renaissance

 In the new Photoshop CS5 programmers introduced the Mixer Brush, which allows users to replicate intricate oil like paintings on a 2-D digital canvas. Pretty sweet. To test its merits and get my stylus pen dirty I will change up the header of the blog a bit. I introduced the feature to my students in class on Friday. The CS5 book took them through an exercise of painting digital photographs. Photos from Da Lat were the canvas, lets see what they created. . .

cloud break by Artist Seagoat

country side by Bao Linh

meadow by Chi Thanh

house by Sagas Studio

can you accept the truth?

FACT: You are alone and feel lonely.

TRUTH: God will never leave you or forsake you. No problem is too hard for God.

eating habits

a southeast asian orange and custard apples

The eating habits of the Vietnamese youth are so different from youth in the states. This morning in class, two of my students had corn on the cob for breakfast (in my class). Quite random for me. The only time I would eat corn on the cob is summer time, at a barbeque. When have you ever seen a young person in America, walking down the streets of your suburban neighborhood, or in an urban environment eating corn on the cob? or carrying a bag of freshly cut fruit? or a boiled sweet potato? It just doesn't happen.
But could it?

In summer time Chi if you look to the side of the street near the curb you will see a parked wagon full of watermelon, maybe oranges, sometimes strawberries. These are fruits in season during summer months and it's part of the culture to be outside attending festivals filled with food stalls of all kinds. Occasionally you might see somebody barbeque-ing on the corner, but they stay on their corner. You won't see little old ladies rolling stacked trays of ice blocks and fruit down the street. But isn't this the problem? Ghetto neighborhoods have always lacked convenient access to fresh produce, or grocery stores that sell a variety of quality fruits and vegetables. There are efforts to create urban gardens, community gardens where everyone takes part in the up keep of the seeds sowed. But again, these gardens stay on a particular corner. If I live on 109th, I'm not going to travel to the 67th street garden to grab some tomatoes or apples. We got to get mobile. Short, petite little old ladies of Ho Chi Minh City are carrying carts up and down hills, poorly paved roads in the midst of this crazy traffic (cause you can't walk on a "sidewalk," that space is already taken by the mom and her 10 year old chile selling leather belts!) Are you getting my drift? Perhaps the homicide rate in south side Chicago would go down if the youth had their hands on a cart of fresh fruit, rolling by peoples houses instead of driving by with a hand on a barrel. I know what you're thinking, What young adult wants to drag a cart of fruit in the heat all day? Well that's another problem. . . laziness. But they don't have to worry about getting sunburnt, the Vietnamese ladies attach a sun Umbrella to their cart. In the land of milk and honey, opportunity, and free speech I think we can concoct up something with AC, a sound system, and an LCD screen. They can't drive a motorbike, we have age limits on driving in America.
Heck, forget the ice cream man, we need a Fast Fruits™ chain. (dont steal it, it's already trademarked!)

Never say "never"

When it's all over and I return to the U.S., I can say that I accomplished two things I previously said I would never do:
1. teach
and
2. travel to Asia.

fear factor

It's like I'm experiencing a real life episode on fear factor, amazing race or road rules-real world challenge. "Cruise through the hem on motorbike past the river of doom. Trapes through the murky water to your final destination. Grab the red flag and pull the bell to win the race!"
Too bad there's no Million $ grand prize at the end of this journey. . . I need dollars, not dong.