Black like me

Who's that girl? What girl?

That's me. I dyed my hair black last week. Initially it was just for fun - Yuri wanted to dye hers brown, so I joked that we should trade. The joke turned into reality for 2-3 hours and $20 at the salon. It also turned into a surprising effect when I walked out on the street.

There aren't very many foreigners in Lanzhou. There are the students studying Chinese at the university, but even among these, a good number are Asian. There are a few foreigners teaching English in the local school systems or in private schools. There's an occasional tourist. Other than that, everyone is Chinese, and everyone has dark hair. Most are black, though some approach a dark brown, and dying brown or reddish brown is relatively common.

My friend noticed it first. "You know, Ellen, people aren't staring at you now." I had kind of stopped noticing - my adaption to being stared at was not to look at people. If I didn't see them staring at me, then they weren't, right? At the beginning it was strange, but people didn't stare in a bad way, more in a marveling way, like they couldn't get enough of seeing something unbelievable. Some days I sure got frustrated - I wanted to go out and get something to eat, or go shopping, and mind my own business while doing it. I wanted to blend in. I thought of walking on the streets of New York, where you can do anything and not get stared at. I thought of how I missed people-watching, since half the people I looked at here were already looking at me. I thought of walking in Cambridge, or pretty much anywhere else I've lived before, where I blend in so completely it's kind of a pleasure when someone notices something particular.

But my friend was right. In the few days that have passed since I dyed my hair, it is clear that the stares I get are remarkably fewer than before. I still don't blend in, and people still look, but there's no red light flashing from a mile away to say that I'm a novelty. It's only when people are close and happen to look my way that they see. I don't catch attention from the corner of an eye anymore. From the back, you can't really tell at all.

I like this change. I have wanted to try out black hair before (I've done very short-term dye before). It's not that I'm trying to be Chinese, obviously that's silly. And I dont even mind being stared at that much - I actually hope it might help people realize that foreigners aren't that foreign after all (I'm eating, shopping, walking, riding the bus, just like anybody else...). But I like this change - it relaxes my everyday life, let's me walk around that much more peacefully. It's kind of ironic how what would make me stick out more at home - having an unnatural hair color - helps me fit in here. I'm thinking about keeping it all year. What do you think?

Yuri


The switcheroo is complete