The Contagious Ponytail

A few blogs back, I mentioned that students and teachers alike are showing up at school with red highlights in their pitch black hair, or in some cases, look like they had an accident with an entire bottle of dye falling on thier heads. We haven't figured out if it's because of us, no one really says, but we suspect that it is. This is Jack who has made an appearance before on the blog (how could we not, he's just sooo cute??). This is just one example of red-haired Koreans: a long strip of hair falling down the forehead that has been dipped in red dye.
This is not a way to pump our egos and attempt to look like fashion trendsetters (if we could single-handedly change the fashion choices in Korea, we would try, but it's beyond hope). We have simply perceived that Koreans are nothing if not copiers. The main way they learn English words is by mimicking our voice, often in a very mocking, annoying way. I sometimes can't help but think we're teaching parrots disguised as children.

I think there is a condition that can best be described as "social contagiousness." It can happen anywhere but Koreans take it to the extreme. One example I read about is the advent of the No Ray Bang (the karaoke place we embarassed ourselves at a few weekends ago). As Cory mentioned, these things are exactly like the Japanese karaoke rooms that have been around since the 1980s. The idea didn't arrive in Korea until the mid 1990s, but when it hit, it spread like wildfire. Not because Koreans want to be like the Japanese (the anomosity between the two nations is epic) but these things are so much fun, they just couldn't help themselves. If Koreans like something, it becomes an obsession, and No Ray Bangs popped up everywhere. On a smaller scale, but with no less compulsion, we see this in the classroom every day. One day if a kid brings in a toy, the next day everyone will have the same thing. One week it's plastic tops. The next it's rattlesnake magnets. The next it's dinosaur eggs that change colour in a glass of water. Toys are short term trends before they are replaced by the next big thing.

This is one reason we think that people are copying our hair colour. And then yesterday, Frankie showed up at school like this:
When Jenn commented on his new look, Frankie was very proud of his ponytail. When she said that he looked like Darin Teacher, he beamed with even more pride. I can just see his poor mother painstakingly putting this tiny ponytail in an elastic, as she's wondering what is happening to her son and where he is getting these crazy notions that a boy's hair should be in a ponytail. The first time I wore my hair back at school, I got called a girl all day long. So Frankie must really like me if he's willing to go to these extremes to copy me.