Thursday, January 20, 2011

Cross-cultural Exchanges

I got my hair done at this henna tatto/threading/hair place around the corner from the train station. There are four or five Indian women working there, but the woman who cut my hair was from Columbia. The first fifteen minutes or so I was there, the strains of Bollywood rang out around me. Then my hairdresser excused herself to get a comb and when she came back, the background music had switched to Hispanic radio. I made small talk. I told her I loved Latino music...salsa, bachata, meringue, reggaeton. Every few weeks I go to this restaurant/bar downtown and dance my heart out at a place called Gonzalez y Gonzalez. "But do you speak Spanish? Do you understand the words?" asked my hairdresser in broken English. --"No, I can't speak Spanish," I told her, "I just go there to dance." The woman laughed. "When I was a young girl in Columbia I listened to American music. We danced to American music and we knew all the songs. I didn't understand the words either."