Confuasian!
Oh my silly Asian sisters, what are you thinking? Please share with me your bedrock of dreams for I’d love to empathize with you and do what I can to help you reach your life’s goal. Alas, you leave me in your wake of tyranny when I approach your International terrain of commerce. I would assume that you come to the US with a burning passion to work in the glamorous nail salons around my fair city. This is a most respectable aspiration for which your petite physiology ordains you as the superior candidates for this worthy task. One would think that your nimble, petite hands and surgeon-like concentration would see you through any professional difficulties. I go for a manicure, you smile warmly, nodding, right away letting me know what I need to do: “Pick color. You pick color.” Not just once do you help me get my bearings, but twice, to erase any confusion of what should happen next. And we’re off to a good start. Later, when I’m having my cuticles clipped, you find live flesh with your tiny artist scissors meant for beautifying the nail bed. I jump in pain and your instincts bring you to calm me, “It dead skin. You okay. It dead skin.” Though you’re patting my soon-to-be-bleeding hand…. I object. “Well, it’ll be dead skin now! That hurt!” But you’re a kind lady, focused on calming me and my nerves. “You okay.” And you carry on, oblivious to my plight. You think I jumped just to see if you were paying attention? Even worse, just to get your attention? It doesn’t seem possible to that, given the amount of lotion on your hands and mine, that you might have been less than precise with the cutting? I’m not sure I’m getting through to you and my hands are literally in your hands.
If this were a single offense, then surely I’d leave it be; there is a margin of error for manicuring, a narrow one, but a margin nonetheless. On this particular day, it’s very cold outside and not well heated in your shop. I ask for my coat to shield me from the unexpected briskness I’m experiencing. “You coat fine. It okay.” Well goody, but you see, I wasn’t asking about the well-being of my coat, I was asking for you to get my coat. I’m beginning to understand, as it slowly dawns on me that you have NO IDEA WHAT I’M SAYING! You haven’t understood a single word, really, have you? You know the colors, you know the procedure, but anything beyond that is lost in the abyss of your Asian-speaking ears. And still, I’m cold. I’m thinking that, for $20, this should be, at the very least, a pleasurable experience with minimal bloodshed. So I persist. “I want my coat.”
With this declaration, I employ the International “brrrr” action. Feeling half foolish yet hoping something near an interpreter will gives us an assist over here. Ah yes, there we go, kind patron who speaks… your language… tells you what I’m asking for. So, frost-bite tragedy averted, we continue to engage in what I now realize is a rather bizarre practice in the first place.
I’m trying to share with you the fact that, as a runner, I have many calluses and would like them all gone. Not surprising you smile, you nod, you pat my shoulder telling me, “Sit down. You sit here. Sit.” Clear enough, however , my plea was sent yet never received. So what I’m wondering, dear Asian sisters, why do you bother? Why are you here? Is the nail industry such a plumb of a job that you put yourself in this position? Are there no nails in Asia that would also benefit from your skill set? Of all possible industries in all potential countries, you insist that we New Yorkers deal with your lack of language skill, at the expense of the service itself. I don’t understand this. Seems to me akin to traveling to Asia-land where I open shop as a freelance copywriter. Sure, I don’t speak Asianese, but that shouldn’t be a problem. I know my craft, you’ll be glad to work with me and it’ll be the beginning of a beautiful thing.
I wonder, do they teach you key phrases that you skate by on? Phrases like, “You pay now.” Got that one loud and clear, didn’t you? “Pick color.” “You okay.” Someone has taught you the necessary English for doing what your heart is most desirous of - slicking the nail beds all across this city, removing unsightly dead skin and polishing with a bevy of radiant, demure, sophisticated and sparkly colors - in a way, adding to the beauty of the city itself. I think this makes you the equivalent of an International Autistic Exchange Student. You can speak and say a few things, but nothing goes in, in return. In fact, anything I need, say, want or request – is simply met with phrase 1, 2, 3 or 4, that someone long ago taught you in order to deal with cranky customers like me. Who’s the foolish one in this scenario? I’m just asking.