The Bald Adventure

            It had finally come to pass. I looked at myself in the dirty mirror with a cloth wrapped around my neck. The barber stood behind me preparing his tools. Weeks earlier Professor Lee, our team leader, had talked about it. He said that Beijing would be a good place to do it. Unfortunately though, we never got around to doing it while in China. I assumed Professor Lee had a plan, but he did not. On one of our last days we looked for a place, but since it was so last minute we were unable to find a suitable place. So we put it off until we could find a place in Vietnam. That is when we found ourselves in Phu Tha Province, where I got more than I had anticipated.

            We had been working in the commune helping them construct a drainage trench. The health center for the whole commune had some nearby water build up. Since the water was stagnant it became a mosquito breeding ground. Our objective was to construct a water runoff conduit to allow the water to flow into the rice patties.

            The people in Phu Tha were very welcoming. It felt good to do manual labor with the natives and contribute to their project. Unfortunately due to rain, often our work was cancelled. Such was the case on the day I shaved my head. In lieu of mixing more cement, we had plans to visit homes and learn about the lives of the villagers. But first, it was time for a haircut. Professor Lee had located a barber and decided it was time for us to finally shave our heads. I was excited, but my stomach churned with apprehension.

            A large group sought out the barber. When we arrived everyone was making a commotion about how excited or nervous they were. Several doubted my looks without hair. As people still congregated around the outdoor barber’s chair, Adam looked at me and said, “Nick, you’re first.” That caught me off guard. I didn’t want to be first. Something could go wrong. Or the naysayers may be right and my hairless scalp will look bad. Then I realized that I was going to do this, so there was no reason to hesitate. I said, “Oh, okay,” and sat down.

            Then Nat, an American grad student doing research with the health center and our amateur translator, eventually explained what I wanted to the barber. Then the clippers came out and all the hair came off. Many exclamations of surprise followed as my scalp, which had not seen the sun for many years, reflected every source of nearby light. Then the barber pulled out a straight razor and started scraping every hair off my head. I was so focused on what he was doing and the pain that emanated through my scalp that I failed to realize that most people had wandered back to the commune headquarters. After having everything but my goatee shaved, I stood and looked at myself in the mirror and thought, “Not bad.”

            Next it was my friend Wesley’s turn. Having done this before he had no qualms about cleaning everything off his head. As the barber began the process of shaving his head, I explored the feeling of having no hair. With the Vietnamese humidity, any refreshing breeze that cooled my scalp was delightful. I rubbed my smooth head and smiled, this was a good choice.

            Unfortunately though, time had run out. Getting our heads shaved had taken longer than anticipated, so the rest of the interested parties could not get their heads shaved. In fact, while Wesley was still half hairless, the rest of our group had to leave for the tour. I stayed behind with Wesley, Josh, one of our leaders, and Nat. Once we were finished, we were supposed to meet with our group outside of the health center and complete the rest of the tour with them. But abiding by the laws of APC, “All Plans Change,” that did not work as expected.

            We walked over to the health center and discovered that our group would arrive in a short while. So we stood outside the health center, in the middle of red clay talking about anything from the dead dragonfly that one of the village boys handed to Josh to Nat’s life plans. After spending about an hour talking and getting to know both Nat and my teammates better, we decided to do something.

            With nothing but the health center nearby, Nat suggested we go in and start our visit early. We walked into the nearly deserted courtyard. As we peered into the different rooms we saw one filled with people who I would later learn were doctors. Nat went up and asked them if they would mind if we looked around. Somehow amidst all of the Vietnamese being spoken, none of which I understood, we were invited into the office with the doctors. The old 90s Windows screen saver was the brightest thing in the room. The barber shop seemed as sterile as the dark smoky room we were sitting in.

            We sat at a short table with several doctors. They poured us bitter green tea and offered us cigarettes. After we all refused, they started smoking. The more tea we drank from our small cups, the more they poured. There was only so much of the bitter brew that I could drink, so as they kept pouring I remembered that in Vietnamese culture if a person finished something that meant that they wanted more. So on my final cup I just took a sip and let it be. No one seemed offended, and I was relieved.

            Sitting in the health office proved to be quite an interesting experience. None of the doctors spoke any English, and only Nat could speak any Vietnamese. This meant that all communication went through Nat, and since his Vietnamese was limited all conversation was slow and halting. We slowly struggled through the normal pleasantries, hello, what’s your name, how old are you, where are you from, etc. Then came the question I was not expecting, “Are any of you married?” While Nat told all of the doctors that none of us had married in Vietnamese I had time to ponder the situation. I could not understand why the doctors had asked us that question. Perhaps they were trying to set us up with some nice Vietnamese girls. Maybe they were trying to find husbands for their granddaughters. I was not used to being asked that question by a group of older men.

            All of this worry came to naught. Later I discovered that it was customary for Vietnamese to ask if someone was married. It would be the American equivalent of asking what someone did for a living. I found out that there was much depth to the Vietnamese marriage culture. Every person had lucky years to get married depending on the year of their animal. My lucky years to marry turned out to be at age twenty, twenty-four and thirty. I also discovered I should marry a woman older than me. This was lucky for me since my girlfriend was already older than I was. All I had to do was convince her that we needed to marry in a certain auspicious time frame and everything would be fine.

            As I sat there stupefied and somewhat concerned, Nat’s next question seemed less strange, “Do any of you have a girlfriend?”

            I said, “I do.” He then asked how long I had been dating and I told him two years. This seemed to pacify the doctors. The conversation continued in Vietnamese, and I sat back relieved and sipped my tea once again. As soon as I set my cup down it was refilled by one of the doctors.

            As I sat in my reverie Nat carried on with the doctors. I was more than happy to not be the center of attention. I smiled to myself as I rubbed my freshly smooth head. However Nat soon turned to us and asked, “Would you like to see a baby that has just been born?”

            Josh looked at Wesley and me and said, “Sure.” But we were all puzzled. If the baby had just been born, how was it that we had heard nothing and the doctors were sitting with us sipping tea? Seeing our confused expressions, Nat explained as we crossed the courtyard, “The Vietnamese are very shy about things like this. Often times there will be no noise. Sometimes, even, a woman will be walking around the room and just, plop! The baby comes out.” This fact impressed us.

            We then followed one of the doctors into the room where the woman was recovering. Her whole family turned and looked at us as we entered. They stared at us in confusion as the contingent of four large Americans walked in. We smiled and offered our congratulations, which I am sure none of them understood. The room was so bare that it only compared to the barbershop in the number of people filling the space. Nat then discovered that the birth had been two hours prior, and shared this news with us. That cleared up all of our questions. After smiling and saying goodbye we stepped out and mulled it over. It was an interesting coincidence that since I shaved my head I was able to see the new life.