Culture Shock (1)

Culture shock?

Let me start from the beginning- I needed a shave and heard that you can get one at any beauty parlor free with a haircut. Then we found out that it's illegal now to get one there cause they were driving all the barbers out of business and that I'd have to go to an actual barbershop. So we looked and looked and finally found a barber shop, complete with red and blue spinning barber pole outside.

I told Rachel to come back in half an hour, walked into the foyer and followed the signs down into the basement of the building. I opened the door to a room lit with a single blood-red bulb, containing a single barber's chair and a curtained doorway leading god-knows-where. A Korean woman in her forties comes out of the curtain and gives me a funny look. (This is when I start imagining myself waking up in a bathtub filled with ice-water with a note pinned to my shirt instructing me to get to a hospital cause my kidneys have been removed...) So I rub my stubbly face and say "Can I get a shave?" She seems to consider for a minute, looks me up and down, decides I'm really in search of a shave and says "Anyeo" (No). So I rub my face some more... She says "Anyeo" again and turns back to go through the curtain. But I still have twenty-five minutes until Rachel shows up. I considered inquiring further into her services, but the red light kinda threw me off. Oh well.

Needless to say, Rachel accompanied me into the next shop...

BTW: When I finally did find a real barber and had my first Korean shave, he lathered and shaved not just my cheeks and neck, but also my forehead and earlobes.