A little bit of change is nice

10 years ago by Maysa Kitpetnee In Teach Abroad - South Korea

If you didn’t know I come from what I would describe as a very traditional Thai-American family. Both my parents are immigrants from Thailand only to meet in the United States (at the immigration office at all places) and start new lives together. My dad has traditional values to his core while my mom is a little bit more less traditional but still up holds most traditions and values. My sister and I were raise in an American society but with Thai traditional always lingering close by. We were given the double standard when wanting to be raised the with “American” standards vs “Thai” standards. With that little rant that i just had, I’ve been pretty much conservative my entire life, never wanting “lose face” as my parents would say. I’m a representation of my parents and I never forgot it and they never let me forget it either.

How conservative are my parents you may ask? I didn’t get my ears pierced until the 5th grade and when I wanted to get a second piercing on my ears my dad freaked out. Imagine. I don’t drink like at all back home, my dad’s always lecturing about how drinking is bad for you this and that. Anything that you imagine pretty normal was too radical for my family, especially for my parents. Why did I go in this entire rant of my conservative Thai parents? There’s a point I promise. I’m in my 20s there still a lot that I want to do before I become a “real” adult. There’s still a lot of things that I haven’t done yet either.

So what did I do?! haha nothing too drastic, well you may think. I dyed my hair. This is the time that I’ve EVER dyed my hair. Yes, I’m 25 and I’ve never dyed my hair before. I’ve been wanting to dye my hair since high school but my parents never let me. Then when I moved to Korea at the start of fall I really wanted to dye my hair, I think that it was the pressure of every single Korean having their hair colored here, haha. So I went into Seoul with Karen of course and we got out hair dyed together.

Karen was really unhappy with the dye job that she had got before. She said it made here look too Korean and she really didn’t like it. So she wanted to turn here hair into an ash brown color instead. I went for an ombre color. I kept my roots black (so that I don’t have to maintain it too much), a dark brown for the middle (which i really like) and and orange blonde ish color for the tips. A grand total of 3 hours to do my hair. Since my hair is “virgin” hair (hair that’s never been treated) I already knew it was gonna take a while to do, but I didn’t think that I would have to have my hair bleached. The tips of my hair was bleached and then dyed after. I LOVE MY HAIR. It did take me a little while to get use to yet though.

before and after of me and kar