Academic Pedicure

This morning I got a pedicure. For Journalism. I swear.

The assignment was to go somewhere that made me feel uncomfortable. I couldn't really think of such a place. Where don't I go?

So I went and got a pedicure, and tried to talk to the stylists. And still, I thought about cultures....

Southeast Asians in Columbia. Men who get Pedicures.

"I didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t know anything about the environment. I was tempted to fall back into my comfort zone - into the realm of culture and language. Their English was native and natural, and I found myself wondering if they were second or third generation, and what it was like to be a Southeast Asian in Columbia. They seemed at once both more and less assimilated than the second generation Asians I was friends with in high school. The stories they told and the slang they used reminded me much more of my school’s cheerleaders than its Asian students, who were mostly superachievers too wrapped up in college applications and national honors society to think about boys, except, maybe, at prom time. (I know because it was my group too.) At the same time, most of them left their cultural identities at home. Other than the occasional joke, or something especially pertinent to a conversation, we scarcely commented on our respective cultures – they didn’t matter much in our class group. On the other hand, this conversation was punctuated by classifications I'd never even heard of before. All of the names involved were foreign, and frequently they’d say, “He’s _____, isn’t he?” – “No, he’s a mix.” The style of assimilation seemed totally different than what I had witnessed in St. Louis."

"She also said that the male magazines made the few guys who came feel more comfortable being in the store. I thought she meant that there were some guys who actually came in to get their nails done, but then she continued to say that some men come in with their wives and are positively terrified of the whole atmosphere, just feel really uncomfortable being around, and the magazines help them to feel less out of place, which made sense. I was curious, though, so to clarify I asked whether any guys actually got their nails done in the salon. “A few,” answered my stylist. “Not many, but we have a few regulars, and we have a few others who come occasionally.” She didn’t offer more details and I didn’t press, although I was intrigued. What sort of guys came to a nail salon for themselves? If Mississippi Nails had even two regulars and two occasional clients, and they were hardly the only provider in Columbia, then how many men were walking around Mid-Missouri with manicures and pedicures?"

It's not great writing, but the point was to go out in the community and think about possible stories.