Smiles and Hair Straighteners

We walk down the street, and they all turn and look at us as we walk by. The brown faces stare at the white faces. The white faces smile at the brown faces in hopes of saying, “it’s ok. We’re just people too.” Then the brown faces smile back with their response, “thank you.”
In these early days before language learning, really all we can do is non-verbal communication. So we try to do the best with what we’ve got.

Our apartment is above a market – kind of like a Southeast Asian Wal-Mart, just a lot smaller. This market carries a few groceries, a few household items, a few appliances and some clothes, so when we need something of that kind, we often walk downstairs to this market. In the last seven days, we’ve probably been there six times, looking for various items we need for our apartment.
The first day we walked downstairs, through rows of little stores and into the market, the people would stop what they were doing and stare at us as we walked by, almost as if they were mesmerized.
I kept wondering if there was some kind of silent alarm going off that we couldn’t hear that proclaimed, “There are foreigners in our midst! There are foreigners in our midst!”
Even in the market, people who were busily going about their shopping would drop whatever item they were holding and watch us (almost open-mouthed) as we walked by.
“Is my hair messed up? Do I have something on my shirt?” I asked the girls in the process, cause I just couldn’t figure out what was the big deal.
“Mommy, can we go home now?” Miá whimpered that first day we went there. It was a little too much culture shock for her, in the midst of dealing with jet lag and just pure exhaustion. So we did. We all felt the same way. We went back to our apartment that night having bought none of the things that we had originally set out to buy.
We would try again the next day after a good night’s sleep.
We expected the stares the next day when we went back to the market. This time when we walked through the aisles, as people gazed at us and our every movement, we smiled at them.
That’s when we made an amazing discovery… when we smiled at them, they would smile back at us and turn around to go back to whatever they were doing before.
Oh sure, they still would kinda glance over their shoulder or watch us with peripheral vision, but at least they weren’t standing there gawking. We did this repeatedly every day.
After we had been here about three days, I decided I just could not live with wild, humidity-frizzed out hair everyday, and I wanted to buy a much-needed hair straightener. The girls and I walked downstairs to the market on our own. This time as we walked, I noticed that the people we passed along the way would initiate the smiles. They didn’t stop and stare so much. They smiled at us first! Some even waved a little.
I realized they were getting to know us. Even though we had not had a single conversation, they had become somewhat familiar with us, and they knew we were going to smile at them.
It made me smile even more.

Once in the market, we proceeded to the aisle with the hair dryers and straighteners. They probably have about 15 girls working in every aisle, but these girls gave us a little space as we walked around. When we found what we were looking for, I turned around and asked the workers close-by, “Anyone speak English?”
The ladies started bobbling like chickens in a hen house as they looked back and forth at each other, asking, “English? English?”
I could tell that they were surprised when we spoke to them, and they wanted very much to help us.
Finally, a young girl, probably in her late teens was pushed forward, and she said, “English? Yes.”
Sidenote: We had been warned by colleagues earlier that any items made in China were probably not good quality. Apparently they only get the rejected items here in this city. Items that no one else wants.
So I pointed to a hair straightener on the shelf and asked the young lady worker, “Chinese?”
She smiled jubilantly understanding what I was asking. “Oh yes, Chinese, Chinese, Korean, Thailand,” she said as she pointed at the different straighteners on the shelf.
Thailand. That’s the one I wanted, and so I took the item off the shelf.
“You test?” she smiled and nodded, taking the straightener from me and walking towards a nearby wall outlet.
“Um. Ok. Sure,” was our response. I wasn’t sure if this was a good idea or not, but it’s only hair, right? What’s the worst that could happen?
Zoë, standing next to me whispered, “Can we try it on my hair?”
“Are you sure?” I asked her.
“Yes, please!” she responded. She was tired of wild, humidity-frizzed out hair too.
When Zoë stepped forward and took her ponytail down for the lady to straighten her hair, the workers got so excited.
A couple of the ladies stepped forward and started feeling Zoë’s hair, they were separating strands to straighten. They looked at each other and giggled. I giggled too. Zoë looked like an animal at the petting zoo as she looked at me as if to ask, “Uh… what do I do here?”
“They’re just excited to touch your hair,” I said, trying to ease her apprehension. “Their hair is different than yours, and they’ve probably never touched a white girl’s hair.”
Then Zoë started giggling. (She reminded me later of the scene in the movie ‘Karate Kid’ where the other kids want to feel the boy’s hair which made her feel like it was ok.)
Pretty soon, we were all giggling. There were about 10 workers and my girls and me, all standing there laughing while they tried to straighten Zoë’s hair.
Before we left that day, the worker who spoke English touched me on the arm and hesitantly said, “You come back?”
“Yes!” I told her. “We’ll be back.”
With that she turned around and started whispering to the other workers. They were all smiling and nodding and waving as we left. “Come back soon,” they said in broken English.

It felt like a small victory that day. It was a first step towards developing relationships with the people that we’ll be seeing on a regular basis. More importantly, it was a first step towards us being able to share where our inner joy comes from, and the true source of hope and life.

It all starts with a smile.
Is there someone you know who might need a smile today?
Share your smile – it could change someone’s life.

Psalm 4:6-7 “Many are asking, ‘Who can show us any good?’ Let the light of your face shine upon us, O Lord. You have filled my heart with greater joy.”