Air Hair Salon

Whenever I get a chance to Taiwan, Cindy’s Air Hair Salon is a “must” stop for me. She’s professional, friendly, and honest; I get much better services from her than in the States at a fraction of the charges. She usually was very quiet, but today when I told her about my last job, she couldn’t help but tell me about her life story, because she was trapped in the same situation at her last job. Other than that she knew what she wanted at a very young age and was firm about it, we’re pretty similar in terms of our attitude towards jobs.

She’s only 31 and a mother of two. At age 15, she knew that she wanted to be a hair stylist and determined to go to a vocational school. This was (and still is) unusual, because all parents wanted their kids to go to high schools and then colleges, especially if their kids got good grades at school. She had a long fight with her strict dad, but eventually she got her wish and moved to Taipei from Southern Taiwan by herself. After a couple of years after school and worked in the real world, she planned to improve her knowledge and became a teacher. So she spent the next 4 years in Tokyo by herself for that goal (and she got a pretty good offer there if she was willing to stay). But when she came back to Taiwan, the economy got worse and few teaching positions were available. So she came back to the salon world. At her first salon, she enountered a series of unpleasant issues and eventually had enough and moved to this current one. Right now, she’s content with her new company, loves her job, and never regrets her decision.

I bowed down to my parents’ wish 20 years ago and studied Computer Science. I didn’t hate it, and sometimes I even loved it. However, it wasn’t a decision I made for myself and I kept on wondering, “What if I went to the art school instead?” Now I quit my high-paying-but-unhappy job without a clear direction of what to do next… It’s scary. At this time, I just do what makes me happy and see what happens next. A very un-Amanda attitude.

My Self-Portrait v.1

I spent 6 hours in Air Hair Salon today, a personal record. Because of it, I actually finished 3 doodles: a bad self portrait, a not-very-me self portrait shown on the left, and a how-to-fix-your-funny-English T-shirt sketching for the young girl who washed my hair (from “I WANT EAT YOU” to “I WANT TO EAT YOU”).

In this one, my hair was full of some white chemical stuff for softening. I’m not good at people sketching, and this one definitely doesn’t look like me. Well, hopefully I’ll get better as the time goes.