A new blog is conceived!

Lately, I've been having a very STRONG desire to start a Black Hair/African hair/Black people empowerment blog. Like most people, it just ends there; a strong desire with endless research and planning but absolutely no action. So now i'm saying enough wishing and thinking, it's time to start DOING.

I know what you're thinking, "another natural hair blog, as if we don't have enough of those already". Well, first of all, I mentioned earlier that my blog will be about African hair, which covers all cohorts of African hair, whether it be virgin/natural hair, relaxed, weave, corn row, locs and everything under the umbrella of black hair.
One of my sisters who has Relaxed hair and whom I've educated about black hair care will be covering the relaxed hair part and since I've been relaxed more than I've been natural, I guess I can also throw in my two cents once in a while.
Also, I feel there aren't enough Canadian hair blogs for us Canucks to read, and so I've decided to create one. Besides, there is power in numbers, we have to be loud and be up in people's faces to effectively create a movement on black hair. We can already see gradual changes in Hollywood with celebrities coming out of the closet. So yay to us :)

And so what about the Black Empowerment part? I'll be sneaking in some posts on common Black issues. And hopefully provoke a reader or two or ten to do something out of the ordinary.

I'm just tired of black people limiting themselves because oh, "that's so white" and then we wonder why there aren't enough black people in leadership position. See, I'm usually the only black person in every organization I've been a part of, including many events I've attended. I'd like to see more black men and women in organized sports, organizations, leadership position, and be CEOs of multinational companies.

Mission: To educate readers of all ethnicity about black hair and motivate Black Men, Women, Youth and Children to strive for the best in all they do.

Plain and simple for now.

See you over at my second blog soon :)

Notice: Upcoming Renovation

Curious Kinks will be undergoing some renovations in the next couple days, so please bear with me while I change up some things. I've been meaning to pretty up the website since I started it, but each time I tried to do this, I just get so overwhelmed by the task that I often give up. So now I'm saying NOW is the time!

                                                                          *Source*

So, why the change? Well, here are a few reasons
1. To fully reflect the content of the blog. My original intention was to blog about my experiences in China and everything else I happen to be curious about. But I've realized that I've only been blogging about China even 3 months after departing from the country.
2. To generate more traffic. I will also be changing the name of the blog to something like "black sista in china" or "Afro Gurl in China"? lol, any suggestions? I often get emails from new readers who happen to "stumble" upon my site, which have led me to think may be my website just isn't OUT THERE enough for people to be stumbling on it instead of easily finding it in their searches.
3. Pretty it up and make it competitive with other travel blogs out there :)
4. Go start another blog for my ramblings! I've had so many ideas for things to write about, but I've decided to strictly stay to the content of the blog.
5. And just because it needs a change!

So, what should we expect?
This blog will be mostly about Life in China from a black woman's perspective, its culture and other randomness. It will also cover topics on expat living, travelling and related topics.
Mission: To inspire more Black people to travel and possibly live in a foreign country. By foreign, I mean a country which is very different from the one you're currently living in, in terms of language, food and culture. Travelling and expat living isn't just for White people, students or the rich. Anyone can do it, because I did it and I don't even fit into any of these groups.
And oh by live in a foreign country, I mean as an expat, not as an immigrant or permanent resident ;)

HOTW 1: Hair of the Week 1

This will be one of the many weekly posts I will be posting on how I wear my hair for the week.

I recently started styling my own hair back in January when I put myself on a 6 months DIY (do it yourself)  challenge. This means from January to June, I will be the only hairstylist for my hair. This will allow me to get to know my own hair on a personal level, put to practice, different black hair practices I read about and to give my hair a break from extensions. This will break a record I set for myself last summer when I wore my hair out for 4months straight, without visiting a salon!  See, I never knew what to do with my hair when it was relaxed, so I would always go "get my hair done" days after taking one style out.

Accidental asymmetric up-do.

I  hope to improve my hair styling skills and creativity by the end of the 6months challenge. Last Spring, I bought an Asian mannequin on my visit to Hong Kong for me to practice hair braiding. However, this mannequin ended up being useless as the hair is very slippery and silky, nothing like black hair at all, natural or relaxed! So I guess I will have to use my own head for practicing instead.

When are you going to do your hair? 

At the women's fellowship this week, a sister from Uganda asked me when I was going to do my hair. I got confused a bit because I thought my hair was already DONE. She then asked me when I was going to put extensions in or get Locs like another sister from Mozambique. I was completely thrown off by this question because I never thought getting a hair done meant putting extensions in the hair.

But then I thought, "Oh yea, only kids, village girls or religious extremist style their hair without using additional hair pieces"
Anyway, my response to this woman's question was that my hair was already done and I don't want to put extensions in my hair because they make my hair dry. 

Is your hair fake?

My Sunday look. "I turned the Wave into a pompadour the next day for a more conservative look"

What my grade 4 boys had to say* about the style.

John: How did she get her front hair to be that high?

Qin (My co-teacher): I don't know, ask her

Tony: It's because her hair is fake

Me: Is your hair fake?

Tony: No, it's not

Me: Mine too

Dana: My hair is not hair!

Whole Class: **bursts out in laughter**

* Whole conversation was in Chinese. Btw, I gave them all English names

I usually wear a full winter attire in my classroom including a hat, since it's so cold in my classrooms. So, most of my students haven't seen my "latest" hairstyle yet. But today's weather was a bit warmer, so I decided to ditch the hat this time. My students definitely had a lot to say about it. Last week, the same John thought my hairstyle looked like a bone (a rib cage), which makes sense, now that I think of it.

Hours later, on my way back home, a Chinese Man asked the Chinese woman sitting in front of me if my hair was fake. Usually, I would just sit there and pretend like I don't understand what they were saying. But since I felt like I attracted the "curiousity", I thought I should answer the man's question and save the poor woman the trouble.

The Chinese are very curious and are not shy to ask awkward questions such as "how old are you and how much do you make?". While some foreigners might think some of these questions are rude and racist, I think they are a result of ignorance (more on the cause of this ignorance future posts). The truth is, we are all ignorant about each other's culture. I mean so many people across the world thinks Africa is a country where it's citizens have no access to education, clean water and food. Also, we share the streets with Elephants and Lions.

I've had someone ask me if this style was real. Like Duh!

No matter how I wear my hair, whether it be in extensions, cornrows, braids, afro puffs, up-dos, twists or whatever, I still get these questions regardless;
1. Is your hair fake?
2. Did you do it yourself?
3. How did you style it?
4. Can I touch it? Which most times, they just touch it without asking.
4. And then the off topic questions... "Where are you from" and "How old are you"

Does this look fake to you?

I never could understand why people would ask me if my hair was fake, as if the originality of my hair is any of their business! I mean, no one in Canada ever asked me if my weave was fake, they just comment on my "new haircut" after I take my weave down. But, I suddenly got a "light bulb moment" on a bus ride home today.  I realized that the Chinese are still getting used to seeing people with different skin colour, shades, eye colour, hair colour and texture. So, for the Chinese who is wondering why I am not as dark as he would have thought, and why I claim to be Canadian, though i'm black; He now has to wrap his head around why my hair isn't as straight as his and why my hair is in that interesting hairstyle.

now, this is what I call fake!

While i've seen many chinese women with curly and wavy hairstyles, I would assume these styles would be classified fake, as Asians hair are not "naturally" curly or wavy. The only time my hair never attracted an audience was when I had a straight weave on, which then looked "natural".