Frank McNally: Kurdish haircuts and Monaco spoofs

I had my hair cut recently by a Kurdish man, a new entrant in the list of nationalities to have taken on that task. Amid the usual small-talk I was genuinely curious to learn more about this ancient race, who make the news only as sub-plots in other countries’ struggles.

Were there many Kurds in Ireland, I wondered? (A couple of thousand, he thought). Did they have regular meeting places in Dublin? (Not really). Was there an independent Kurdish state anywhere yet? (Just regional autonomy so far, talk of secession in Iraq).

He was an Iranian Kurd himself. And between giving him occasional instructions (“just a scissors cut, please”, “not too short“), I listened to a brief history of his people’s troubles, while making sympathetic noises about the plight of smaller nations caught between empires.

Despite which sympathy, it struck me at one point that he was mistaking my hair for the enemies of Kurdistan. He was a bit over-vigorous with the comb. As for his scissors-use, it was borderline violent, especially when he mentioned the 1920 agreement by which the Kurds were supposed to get their own state.

Of course, this may just have been his style. Some hairdressers are more robust than others. At one point he thanked me for my interest. “I’m happy when people know something about my country,” he said.

But he didn’t sound happy about the Kurds being sold out by the western powers. So when he belatedly asked me which side I parted my hair (the split is usually the first item on the agenda), the question seemed more than usually loaded. “Oh, whichever way it falls,” I said.

In fairness, the haircut turned out well. Unlike one I had many years ago, while travelling, from a Lebanese man who was staying in the same youth hostel.

Hostel hair

There were two possible candidates for the job among the residents. One was Irish, a former hairdresser in Dublin, who still did it occasionally for friends. But I sensed she was trying to escape that past, so I didn’t ask and instead approached the lad from Beirut who had advertised on the noticeboard.

This was the late 1980s, still a bad time for Lebanon. Not that it seemed to bother him. He was of very sunny disposition (unlike the Kurdish man, who was more Sunni, I suspect). And while he cut he gave me a free commercial on his country’s charms.

It was a place, he told me, where you could sunbathe in the morning and then go skiing in the afternoon. But even while promoting Lebanon’s scenery, he was detracting from mine.

When my Dublin friend saw the results later, she considered it almost a war-crime. Shaking her head sadly, she said: “You should have come to me”.

Monte Carlo

Of all my international coiffeurs, however, none will ever surpass the embarrassment caused once, back in Dublin, by a lovely young woman from Romania. More precisely, she was from Transylvania. On another occasion we might have had a very interesting conversation about that part of Europe and how its image has been defined by the writings of a Dubliner. But we never had that conversation because of a bizarre turn of events that began when, having asked me which part of Ireland I came from, she misunderstood the word “Monaghan”.

Her excitement at the revelation (“I knew it!“) was a first in my experiences with women. I was still puzzled when she went on to say, with a note of triumph, that although her English wasn’t good, and she didn’t normally notice accents, she had noticed straight away that I was “French”.

Now, this is where I should have corrected her, without a moment’s delay. But rendered briefly speechless, I didn’t. By the time the penny dropped (“Monaco is beautiful place, no?” she asked), it was too late. She was so pleased at having outed me, I feared the truth would crush her.

So I played along while trying to change the subject to vampires. Unfortunately, Transylvania was no match for the possibility that I was related to Prince Rainier and I couldn’t get her off the topic.

The worst thing is, I was well-known in this place. All I could do was keep my voice down and hope the conversation couldn’t be heard above the hairdryers. They would, I knew, have witnessed a lot of spoofers over the years. But someone pretending to be from Monte Carlo to impress an innocent female immigrant would have been a new low. @FrankmcnallyIT