First Quarterly Report

Submitted on November 1, 2006

First Quarterly Report -
"Braiding: Traditional Art, Esthetic Service or Cultural Expression?"

"It’s amazing how quickly three months can go by! It feels like it was just yesterday that I was leaving for Sydney and now I find myself in Bangalore, India! So far I feel like my project has been going well, not to say that everything has run smoothly – there couldn’t be anything further from the truth – but over the past three months, I have been able to learn some very interesting things by investigating hair braiding customs in three very distinct cultures.

My first stop was Sydney, Australia for a month. I spent most of my time in an area called Newtown, where there is a concentration of ethnic salons. My desire was to volunteer at a salon as a braider, or even as a hairsweeper, but I found that salon owners weren’t really receptive to that idea; instead, they allowed me to visit their salons to conduct interviews with the staff and clientele, observe their hair creations, and photograph the styles, which turned out to be a pretty good arrangement anyway. I frequented three such salons: Ambo Ars Hair Salon, Serengeti Hair Salon, and Afrique Ali’s Hair Salon.

In addition to my salon visits, I would also interview people that I ran into on the street with braided styles. Initially, I was apprehensive about randomly approaching people to ask them about their hair but soon realized that people like to talk about their hair, especially if their hairstyle is unique, and I met some pretty interesting people that way. Through my salon visits and random street encounters, I was able to speak to members of the White, Asian, and Immigrant Black communities of Sydney. My only regret was not being able to penetrate and learn more about the Indigenous community.

I had speculated that the Aboriginal peoples would have a hair braiding culture but was disappointed when the stylists told me that this was not the case. I was not convinced; and after contacting Aboriginal community organizations in Redfern as well as Message Stick TV and getting no real leads, I decided to head to the University of Sydney to see if they had any Aboriginal student organizations. At the University’s Koori Centre, I was able to speak with two lecturers who explained to me that even though the Indigenous people of Australia no longer have a braiding culture (they believe that they probably did have one before being forced to assimilate when the European settlers arrived), a braiding/locking culture still exists in Tasmania and the Pacific Islands. I was disappointed to find this out less than a week before I was due to head to Japan, but I’m glad that I was at least able to get the opportunity to get an Aboriginal perspective on hair, in general.

My second stop was Tokyo, Japan, where I also spent a month. In Tokyo, I decided to use the same strategy that I had used in Sydney: visit hair salons and conduct interviews. I was able to do so at two salons: Room 806 and Hallelujah Hair Salon, located in the areas of Roppongi and Harajuku, respectively. I had hoped to visit more salons in Japan to make up for the fact that I couldn’t conduct street interviews due to the language barrier, but fell ill twice within the month with bronchitis, which robbed me of precious time. In retrospect, I probably should have stayed in Japan longer because, surprisingly enough, Japanese hair braiders now rival African hair braiders when it comes to technique! But I had already bought my ticket to India and figured that I should stick to my itinerary.

Now I’m in India. India has been my greatest challenge so far and where I have experienced my first “real” bout of culture shock. I started in Delhi, where my flight arrived, and ended up staying there for a while because my Indian contacts fell through and I needed time to figure something out. With advice from a family friend, I decided to come south to Bangalore, where I have been able to get in contact with the owner of a hair styling school, who has agreed to allow me to conduct interviews. In the meanwhile, I have been speaking to the local women about Indian hair aesthetics, which include adding floral garlands and fragrant oils to their hair. I have also been able to get a lead in Chennai for a Classical Indian dance group that uses hair braiding as part of their adornment for performances. If I hear back from them, I will head to Chennai in a couple weeks. If not, I will stay in Bangalore and frequent the hair salons here.

One important thing that I have learned over the past three months is that, with Watson, nothing ever goes as planned! At the beginning of my journey, this used to really bother me because I always wanted (and expected for) my game plan to work -Watson has made me realize how much I like to be in control of everything! But I am learning that the Watson experience is all about flexibility, that when a given strategy works in one country that doesn’t necessarily mean that it will work in the next, so I understand now that it’s okay to just go with the flow. I have also found that many of my project leads have occurred without any initiative on my part; I have been able to learn a lot about my topic from random people that I’ve met during my “non-Watson-related” activities, like at restaurants or in the supermarket. This is a constant reminder that everything I do during this year is actually “Watson-related,” whether I’m actively conducting “research” or not, and the more that I think about it, I am realizing more and more that Watson is not a typical research fellowship at all but rather a yearlong life experience."