No fortune cookies in the land of good fortune

Beijing - I was disappointed to find there are no fortune cookies here. I was duped after hundreds of Chinese food deliveries in the US to expecting those as an integral part of the meal. Over dinner Monday night, Erin says she's done some research into this important issue. She says the fortune cookie is an Asian-American invention. It was invented by a Japanese restaurateur in San Francisco. The concept was appropriated by an enterprising Chinese restaurateur during WWII internment of Japanese Americans. Christina, who was born in China but grew up in San Francisco, doesn't like this theory. She says it was a Chinese fortune teller / baker who invented the fortune cookie.  He would write peoples fortunes and one day they accidentally fell into the batter and became part of the cookie.   

So I had to google for the "true story" and found an entry on Wikipedia (which as a friend told me recently is the people's victory over the tyranny of fact):   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_cookie

"Confucius say he who write blog about fortune cookie have too much spare time."  Maybe so, but you have to admit you read this. 

Blonde in the land of two billion brunettes

So... those of you who remember the tragic $13 Guatemala haircut of February 07 (aka "the shearing") will be surprised (or maybe not) that I have attempted to get my hair done here in Beijing, in a country of billions of brunettes.  But I asked another blonde (my French-Australian friend Frederique) where she got her hair done and she referred me to the not-so-French sounding "Eric of Paris" (maybe it's Paris, Texas).  She has pretty hair and she's French and aren't they famous for haircare? 

 

Well, I went in September and even though I don't think anyone in there has ever even been to Paris, I got a lovely highlight touch-up (I tell my new friends here that I'm lowering my IQ - they think that environmental automatically means cerebral, ie not fun) head massage, hair cut and blowdry, all for the very French price of $140.  But my hair looked fabulous as I went grocery shopping.

 

So, why wouldn't I go back to get a little shine before the holidays?  I'll tell you why not.  I'm in the land of two billion brunettes and they must think that making my blonde highlights look "natural" is an oxymoron.  Nobody should be blonde.  It's just wrong.  I went in Sunday and my hair "consultant" tells me, my hair "look too orange" and he will help to make it look more like my natural color.  Well OBVIOUSLY my natural color is blonde.  That's what I was born with and that's what I'm sticking with, dammit.  I think, cool, I'm okay with it looking less orange and just more awesome.  Bring it on.  

 

They done brought it.  After an hour of tinfoil and what I assumed was blondifier, I sat for another 30 minutes (and read half of Tina Brown's enormous and surprisingly trashy Princess Di bio).   Then I got a nice shampoo, head & neck massage, and sat back in the chair.  The towel came off.  My jaw dropped.  My eyes teared up.  I thought to myself, it's just because it's wet, wait til they dry it a little.  Then finally I had to let it out - "IT'S TOO DARK!"   He kept drying and poofing this alien hair that had attached itself to my head.  "No, it's just more natural.  Not orange."   "But I'm a BLONDE - I just wanted highlights to be MORE BLONDE.  I don't want to look 'natural' - I could do THAT for free."   Okay, I'm putting thoughts in this guy's head, but he seemed to take a perverse pleasure in taking me to different parts of the salon where there was more natural light, showing me in a hand-held mirror "it looks more natural now." 

 

I didn't want to leave.  I knew it would be embarrassing to go to work.  I knew my mother would hate it.  But by that point I had been there for 4 hours.  And I was afraid to fry my hair.  And I was really hungry for a burrito.  He said I should wait a couple days but I could come back if I didn't like it.   How much for this awful color job and instant depression, you ask?  Only $191.  Ack.  That is more than I spend on my hair in a year in Atlanta.  (I am a big fan of Hair Cuttery.  Peroxide, scissors, and no appointment required.)

 

After walking around like a turtle for much of the day at work on Monday, I just couldn't get back to the salon fast enough.  When I called to make sure Mr. Natural would be there to fix me the receptionist laughed: "I remember you!"  I spent another hour and a half chez Eric, much of it with my neck bent at that improbable angle it can only assume in a salon sink as one of the the junior non-French guys muscled anti-natural into my hair.  Dizzy and anxious, I closed my eyes when the towel came off.  I opened them and had to laugh. 

 

The alien hair was now a beautiful shade of palest orange.  The land of two billion brunettes got their revenge.

 

Whatever.  It's a version of blonde. A little less strawberry blonde, and a little more Orange Julius blonde.