Chinesey hair and the time I got a perm

On a recent episode of "Fresh Off The Boat," Emery gets what his father, Louis, calls a "success perm" on the occasion of his tennis final, strutting his stuff under the tutelage of none other than tennis legend Billie Jean King herself. 

(Kevin Estrada/ABC http://www.ew.com/recap/fresh-off-the-boat-season-2-episode-14)

I laughed so hard it hurt. Yes, there is the humor of the game faces of protégé and coach side-by-side, matching headbands and tennis outfits. Then there are all the inside jokes you might need to be Asian (or know one really well) to get. 

In my girlhood, as a special treat sometimes, I would give myself a "perm." At bedtime I washed my hair, combed it out, and while it was still wet, separated my thick, long mane into the smallest tresses my nine year old hands could manage; then I got to work braiding and braiding. I had learned from trial and error that braiding hair while it was still wet and letting it dry in braids overnight increased the amount of wave yielded.

Sleeping in braids is not at all comfortable, but even as a nine year old, I was disciplined in my determination to have a head full of wavy hair. In the morning, after carefully unraveling the fasteners and finger combing my hair... voila, my "perm"! Depending on the temperature and humidity, my "perm" lasted anywhere from an hour to several hours. Like Cinderella, the clock never fails to strike midnight when you are born with straight, thick, silky-smooth hair but dream of wavy curls.

In middle school, after begging and begging my mom, I got my first real perm. I didn't know it at the time, but it was also the ONLY perm I've ever wanted so far in my life.

I pictured myself looking like Alyssa Milano. I told my mom that for my birthday, Christmas, and Chinese New Year, all I wanted was a perm. Up until my Alyssa Milano ambition, my talented mom had given me fabulous haircuts my entire life. Somehow my mother agreed to the perm, and to this day it is not lost on me that my parents sacrificed money that could have been better spent on far more pressing concerns at the time, like groceries, utilities, and rent. We had only been in the country for two years, and like many immigrants, my parents left behind a life of relative comfort in order to give their children opportunities they had not had. They paid the price of starting at the bottom again, both working menial jobs, my mom at a fast food restaurant, my dad at a Chinese restaurant. 

Maybe my mom pitied me for the hair woes I seemed to have had since day one. I was born with a full crown of unruly hair, cartoonish, really, in the way it stuck straight up, as though I had been lit up by an electrical current and lived to tell about it. My nickname was Lion Head. As an infant, I had a terrible case of cradle cap. Grandma told me that she'd get to work picking off giant yellow crusts while she watched her Cantonese soaps.

Mom took me to the national chain hair salon at the suburban strip mall. The entire process from childhood fairy tale aspiration to crushing reality took only a few hours. The chemicals burned my nostrils and left a rash along my hairline and neck. My once lustrous healthy hair turned brittle and yellowish brown. For weeks afterward my hair fell out in clumps. It was unruly, and I was relegated to brushing or combing only while it was still wet. I didn't know that perms were so fussy to maintain. 

When I showed up to my babysitting gig with my new perm, my toddler charge told me she liked my "Chinesey" hair better. Me, too, kiddo. Me, too. 

It took about three years to grow it out, but eventually my healthy straight hair returned. Ever since that incident, I have never felt the need to curl my hair again. I don't even blow dry it, and the more I learn about what my curly-haired friends do to maintain their 'dos, the more grateful I am for boring straight hair. 

Lion Head

Alyssa Milano Wannabe Phase

high school graduation, straight boring hair with my beloved grandmother