Korean Anthropology - Field Notes 2

In a number of these personal discoveries that I'm writing on Korean culture, I'm going to self-proclaim expertise.  In several, although I will point out my mystification, I'll still offer some dithering opinions. But there will be some, like today, which I'll have to admit, I don't get it at all. Completely bizarre, outside my comprehension, alien lifeforms...

Hair Touching

Remember I mentioned the 'I Need To Look Good' generation?  This story is what defines them, this is the piss on the trees that marks out the periphery of their sub-cultural territory. I suppose, generally, it is 18 to 30 year olds - I'm sure that it drops off rapidly after late 20's but I really don't understand when it starts. It seems to be equally practised by both men and women.

I'll explain with the story of my first encounter.  Not long after my arrival in February, I found out that in Korea all English language films are left in the original with Korean subtitles added. Very decent of them, I thought. (I didn't find out until much later that each film has a run of about 3 months and they only bring in about 20 films per year. Jane Eyre was on from March until July! The rest are Korean.)  I love cinema - the prospect of being here for 12 to 18 months and only watching DVD's on a computer screen had depressed me. I was so elated that, the very next weekend, I tried to bluster my way through the stunningly complex booking and ticket purchase process which was made all the more difficult by not having a credit card. I can't recall the film I went to see but the cinema (like all of them) was fantastic.  (I still don't understand why people buy home cinema systems, what a waste of money if what they're after is a great cinema experience. If, dear reader, you don't know it, try 'Screen on the Green' in Islington. Something like 'Super-8' (playing at time of writing) would be perfect to see. Go with someone you like to hold hands with.  Then tell me you want to buy a home cinema.  (I think this is called a digression - I'll get back to the story.) )

Before the film, I decided that it would be best to be prepared for a long film, so I went for a quick visit to the loo.  On the way, past the wash basins section, I noticed a young man standing in front of the mirror. Hmm... I thought, interesting pastime. (George Michael, is that you?) And went on about my business. Now normally, I'm not a big hand washing kind of guy. (All OCD types: look away now!  Rejoin at the next paragraph.) I figure it makes more sense to wash your hands before visiting the urinal, not after. I mean, it shouldn't be necessary to get so involved with the operation to require a thorough scrub afterwards.  But as I started to walk back, the guy was still standing there!  Curiosity prevailed, and, feeling the need to see in detail what he was doing, I broke my usual cleaning habits.

I set the pace for a long, slow and careful hand wash.  He was about 22. Fairly tall, with a floppy, but cultivated hairstyle. Standing with about 2cm of separation from his nose to the mirror. Hardly moving. Then one hand came up and very lightly touched some strand and the breath of his finger brushed along it. The hair didn't move. Continuous fixed stare at the mirror, no other movement in the room except for me working the soap plunger and my jaw dropping. The right hand comes up and moves to the hair hanging over the place where a sideburn would be, had he the necessary follicles to grow one. An almost imperceptible twist of his head to his left. Very slowly, his fingers run along the slightly curling lock. Encouraging but not forcing it in its already chosen direction. After an eternity (my eyes now locked into the sides of my sockets), the next movement was with both hands - touching the area just above the temples, the slightest of pressures, just asking the air between the strands to make itself thinner. No stroke this time, just the gentle coaxing of the tips of his fingers.

By this time my hands had started considering growing a vegetable garden. I couldn't possibly wash any longer.  I left him there, still repeating these gestures, although he did go through a head twist or two as he surveyed some new angle on the art work resting above his ears. Of course, I just put this down to a very strange and possibly disturbed young man. But not for long - this behaviour repeated itself over the weeks and months. On the subway, a young man or woman will stand with their nose nearly touching the glass doors, eyes glued to the reflection, earphones attached to iPod, and hands gently and continuously grazing their hair.  Never moving it, mind you. I have yet to see the hair move.  That I would understand - if there was something wrong with the coif, great, then move it around until you get it right.  Also in the lift in my building, nearly every morning there is a twenty-something woman with her back to me, pressed against the wall, staring at the mirror and touching her hair. I'm completely invisible as is anyone else who enters the lift.

I can give it a name (vanity) but I certainly can't explain how a whole generation caught it in such a massive dose. K-pop? Possibly. All of the touchers certainly could be a member of any one of the billions of ubiquitous and saccharine K-pop groups.  Maybe it's amazement. A very small number of years before, these would have been gawky, pimpled, middle class kids.  Now they look at their reflections and see a potential star. (See the later article on Artificial Feature Construction).  So why haven't previous generations in other places behaved the same?