BIASNESS

At the beginning of the year, I went to the hair saloon to get my hair done for the new school year. My regular hairstylist in Ipoh, Mary, had migrated to London to be with her husband there. When I went to the saloon, I was rather upset to find that I won't be having Mary style my hair. I usually leave it to her to suggest whatever style is suitable for me but since I was there I decided to go ahead with it. The stylist who was assigned to me was a guy called Frankie. Before he started on me, I had asked him for his qualifications and where he graduated from. Well, he sort of got the idea that I wanted someone who was London-trained like Mary. Well, this young man gave me a piece of his mind by telling me that one should not look down on locally trained hairstylists as they are equally good if not better. Seeing such confidence in him, I left it to him to decide what style was right for me. Surprise, surprise! He did a great job and everyone commented that the hairstyle made me look great.
Five months later, I decided to go seek Frankie out to restyle my hair which has grown longer and also I was getting tangles which caused a lot of hair to fall during washing. This time around, I was told that Frankie had already gone to work in Singapore and if I wanted an experienced stylist I had to wait for John who would be in the next day. John, I was told, has 20 years of experience working in this line of work. I agreed. I would not want someone new with just a few months experience to do my hair.

When I went the next day, John was waiting for me as I had made an appointment the previous day. Well, let me tell you that John (see second picture) is mute and it was really difficult to communicate my ideas to him. The other stylists did help but they were not too good with sign language. Finally, I wrote down what I wanted on a piece of paper for him. At one point, I wanted to leave the saloon and go to another place but finally I remembered my experience with Frankie and told myself that I must not be biased because John was mute. From thereon I left it to him to decide. Well, I must say that we got on famously and he was able to show me that the length of my thick hair was causing a lot of problems for me. He signed to me that I should not be perming the hair and he said he'd just trim it for me. After everything was done, I must again say that he did a good job and realise that his 20 over years of experience really showed. My verdict is I'd go seek him out again the next time. And the moral behind the story is that we should not be biased about where a person received his training or if they are handicapped.