Dimsum Days: “Her Hair Is Just So White…”

On an unexpectedly warm winter day in February 2012, most of TBAC’s extended family was gathered together for dimsum, as they do once in a while, to catch up on each others’ lives.

She and her cousin, who is 20 years old (four years her junior), were talking about how everyone (including themselves) was getting old.

TBAC said to her cousin, “Yeah, my mom has gotten a lot more white hairs this year… But I like how it’s just on the sides, around the temples.  Your mom’s so lucky she doesn’t have any white hair.”

“Oh no, she has a lot of white hair.  She just dyes it every month,” her cousin responded.

“Oh, I didn’t know that!”

TBAC’s eyes scanned the table and stopped at her grandma, who has salt-peppery hair, appropriate for someone who is 81 years old.  She was sitting next to her cousin’s 78-year-old grandma, who has perfect jet-white hair, like an untainted blanket of snow one would find on top of mountains.

With the earnestness of a little girl wanting to know if unicorns really existed, or if babies came from storks, or if she could go visit the Muffin Man on Drury Lane, she asked her cousin, “Did your grandma dye her hair white?”

Her cousin stared at her with furrowed eyebrows.  Her head tilted at an angle, as if she were saying come again?, she responded, “Did you just ask me if my grandma… Dyed her hair WHITE?”

“Ummm… Yea…?”  TBAC replied.

“Oh. My. GOD! Christina…WTF!?!!??????!!!!!”  Her cousin LHAOs.

TBAC paused, not understanding what the hell was so funny.  Then a fluorescent light bulb alit.  “OOHHHHHHHH Hahahahahaaaaa,” she giggles uncontrollably.  “But her hair is just so white…!”

* * *

Dear Reader,

In my defense, if you saw her hair, you would have asked the same question… I am sure of it!

And isn’t it a good question though?  So many people dye their hair black to make themselves look younger, more natural, and [insert other complimenting word].  But why not dye hair white?  As George Bernard Shaw would advocate: Dream something different and ask, “Why (the hell) not?”

So do it — I bet it would look gorgeous :)

Affectionately,
That Blonde Asian Chick