A Happy Head

In Suncheon, the town where I hang my hat these days, there is a monstrous chain store called Home Plus. In Home plus you can buy almost anything you need for your home and your kitchen-plus! (sorry I had to say it.) Anyway, it's a convenient place to shop. As a matter of fact, I bought a new Ipod Nano to replace the one I had washed yesterday, then I immediately retreated to the lower level to purchase my weekly groceries. Just like that, talk about accessibility! Because of this handy novelty most foreigners tend to congregate here on a daily basis. If you ask me, if you took the top five places where you would find a non-Korean face in Suncheon; Home Plus would rank in the top 3. The other two would be in the Shidae Apartment elevator, because that's where all of us wonderful English Teachers reside; the apartment, not the elevator, and probably Elvis bar, which is a little bar which has an overabundance of vinyl albums and whose owner is patently called Elvis. What is also attractive to foreigners at Home Plus is the top floor because it has a food court style restaurant that has enormous portions of food for as little as four dollars a meal, but what is curiously appealing is something that lies right besides the food court. There you will find a relatively affordable hair dresser that gives you the greatest head massages for no charge. If you get your hair cut there, you will also be treated to a complimentary double wash and dry, with a no -nonsense, intense scalp massage.

If you are foreigner in Korea, you won't have to make any appointments. Just walk in, and they will see you. Since you are are a visitor to Korea, they will usually try to expedite your visit. Koreans want to give their nation a hospitable face regarding customer service with foreigners. As a bonus If you do have to wait they will graciously offer you some coffee to keep you awake for the entire five minutes you might actually have to sit there unattended. See they will go out of their way to get you a seat with a hair-stylist who will consequently try to speak a little English-but you shouldn't expect much. Their English isn't great, and their hair cutting English is lacking a vocabulary bank. They will mostly just tell you how handsome you are. Koreans like to pay compliments. Even to less hairy folks like me. At the least there will be hundreds of magazine photos to choose from to match the hair style you want. My Korean is non-existent and I usually manage by choosing a picture of David Beckham or someone much cooler and hipper than me and hope that they can mysteriously create the same

Once you are in a chair, you will be asked again what you want them to do with your hair. Just show them Beckahm! Then you will be whisked away to the sink by a stylist in training; usually a girl just out of high school, where she will begin phase one of your hair transformation. Then after a quick shampoo and dry, you get led back to your 'head,' hair cutter, who works on your hair with a passion that I really don't understand, but I just let them work away, and hope that they remember the picture revealed to them. As he cuts, there is another assistant who stands there with a giant sponge and removes the little hairy bits that tend to scratch a little. So if you're counting, that's a total of three people working on your hair. I think there are less people assigned to surgically remove a brain tumor. Once the hair is cut, and it's closely matching the photo, although most likely much shorter than you had anticipated, then it's time to hit the sink again.

This is the part where the girl massages your scalp-after another shampoo and towel dry of course. It's isn't just tender Korean hand touches poking at little points of your head, but it's an intense, brain tingling, stress relieving affair, that leaves you refreshed till dinnertime. Your cranium feels like it's being kneaded like pizza dough, but in the end it feels so delightful. So after your deep brain press, you just hop back in the chair, and girl assistant number two turns on a hair dryer and dries the little parts girl number one missed. Then the head cutter instructs girl number two where to apply the gel to make your hair look stylish.

You then walk to the counter and pay your 11,000 won tab. By the way that's like 11 dollars. I don't have to tell you how much more a cut of this opulence would be in America. The cheapest place in my little home town charges 14 dollars, and that's by moaning, hungover, miserable ladies who just chop your hair with noisy electronic clippers for fifteen minutes and expect a tip in the end. In Korea, you never have to tip-anywhere! If you try, the Korean will just give you your money back informing you that you had paid too much. After paying-who is another lady by the way, you will then be thanked greatly by receiving many countless bows from all three ladies, then you will escorted to the main door by the head stylist who will bid you a safe journey home. Then you will receive one final courteous bow, and you'll walk out with a smile, much shorter hair, and a relaxed scalp.