A few weeks ago I found myself in my school’s cafeteria, eating lunch and enjoying a very rare moment of solitude. Lunchtimes are a communal time when the teachers all sit together to catch up and converse. A few brave teachers will practice their English on me – conversation that starts off stilted, gets uncomfortable, and ends in awkward silence.
This particular day must have been a Wednesday, because on Wednesdays I have a class right before lunch, and as a result I am usually late to the cafeteria. On Wednesdays, I tend to get there after my colleagues have already eaten. The ones who are left are usually admin staff, and I don’t feel obliged to sit with them.
Alone is exactly how I like to enjoy my lunch, and I was about halfway through my meal when a teacher I hadn’t spoken to before came and sat down opposite me. We nodded at each other cordially, and then I went back to my food.
A few moments passed before the man’s chewing took on a pensive quality. It was the chewing of a man building up the courage to try out his English. He put down his metal chopsticks and said, “You… haircut?”
It was true. Only four days before, I had caught a subway into Hadan, sought out a stylist, and paid top dollar for a trim which I had found most pleasing. I had been a man on a mission, and I was determined to avoid any capers that would lead to a giggle-worthy blog post about high jinx in a hair salon. I’d had my phone at the ready and translated everything so that there’d be no miscommunication. I unashamedly confess that I came away quite pleased with the results.
Back in the cafeteria, my new friend was waiting for a response.
“Yes,” I told him. “Only four days ago… man on a mission… no high jinx…” I tapered off as I ran out of ways to answer in the affirmative.
My new friend resumed his chewing, turning over my response in his head.
“You pay…” using his right index finger, he wrote imaginary numbers on the palm of his left hand, “twenty-two thousand won?”
He was exactly right. In that instant, I realised two things: He already knew the answers to all the questions he was asking, and my new trim wasn’t turning heads in the way I’d originally thought.
“That’s right,” I said. “Top dollar… Avoided capers.”
“Where did you get haircut?” he said, asking only for the practice of it.
“Someplace in Ha-…”
“…-adan” he finished, nodding his head.
It was then that I realised that I was having the same conversation, almost word-for-word, as I’d had with my co-teacher Sunny a few days before when she’d seen my new style. Sunny always enjoys hearing about my experiences outside of school, and I am always happy to tell her everything that I get up to. I also know I am a source of gossip among the other teachers, being the new foreign teacher and all. I don’t mind being spoken about in this way, but up until that point I hadn’t realised how deep and precise the gossip had gone.
My lunch partner took up his chopsticks and ate a few more mouthfuls of namul. Now that I knew where his intel was coming from, I felt I had regained the upper hand.
My friend swallowed his mouthful and said, “Very exp-…”
“…-pensive, I know. I know,” I said, nodding in commiseration.
“Near school very cheaper,” he said. “Maybe…” he put down his chopsticks and wrote imaginary numbers on his palm again, “…fifteen thousand.”
“Wow, that’s quite cheap,” I said. Not wanting to overplay my hand, I feigned surprise at this information.
The man raised a cautious hand and pointed to an area in space just over my left ear. “Maybe here there is haircut.” He was talking about the commercial building behind the school. It was a place that housed several restaurants and shops. I’d walked by it once or twice, and had not seen a hair dresser. But then again, I hadn’t been searching for one at the time.
“Thanks!” I said, with feeling. “I’ll try that next time.” It’s not that I didn’t want a cheap haircut. But I was so happy with the haircut I had gotten that I wanted to keep going back there. All in all it wasn’t that expensive. But now that option was no longer open to me. The next time I get a haircut, people will ask where I’d gotten it and how much it had cost, and when I tell them the truth, they will spread that information around the entire staff room before my severed locks have been swept off the barber’s floor.
The conversation ended in an awkward silence, and I decided that I had finished my lunch. I nodded farewell to my friend and went to clear away my dishes, slightly despondent that my new haircut had come under such criticism. I guess my haircut hadn’t impressed my workmates in the way that I’d hoped.
The children, on the other hand, thought it looked great. “Teacher!” they chorused when I walked into class. “New haircut!”
There’s nothing like the adoration of a child to boost one’s spirits. Of course, the followup whispers of “…Very expensive…” can bring those spirits right back down to earth again.
The Hangul Games 