The Osama bin Laden Beard

Things in China tend to change pretty fast and on a whim. One day about three months ago I decided to stop shaving purely to freak out my students. In China you almost never see any facial hair except for little Confucius like bears on old men. The students for the most part simply can't grow beards and in a culture that values conformity above almost all else why would you want to stand out even if you could. So I just stopped shaving. I didn't really have any idea how long I wanted it to go for besides the fact that I wanted to get a reaction out of my students. It took almost a month before I stunned them with the length of time I had gone without shaving, but after that time the beard had become too much fun. When I would stand outside some stall ordering food I would notice the various vendors having conversations about it. Usually putting their hands to their face to pantomime beard. At first growing the beard was pretty hard it would itch constantly. I described the feeling to someone as like having food on may face I couldn't wash off. But after about the first month or so it stopped itching and doesn't feel like much anymore. It still annoys me sometimes when I start to sweat or just when it gets really humid out. Much like the hair on the top of my head it's pretty much uncontrollable so I've just not been cutting it at all.

I hadn't mentioned it before on this blog since I had planned on keeping it a surprise for when I got home but even though that is pretty soon trying to make sure there were no pictures with my beard just became too much. Mainly there is a video I just got of a sex ed speech I gave which is far too funny to not put on my blog so I'll post it beard and all tomorrow. At one point this semester I was covering a class for Dave that was actually one of my old classes from last semester. They hadn't seen me with the beard so they were quite shocked. Later a few told Dave that they didn't like it and thought that I was cuter without it. A few people have said I look like I'm from central Asia, which is I think they way of saying Muslim. The best comment though came from one of the people who works with the England students who said that my beard made me look like Osama bin Laden. He said it in his usual friendly way and with such a thick accent that at first I thought he must have said something else but after asking him later he did in fact say my beard looked like Osama bin Laden. Now I guess my beard is kind of bushy but I think I'd have to grow it for a while yet to look like Laden, but I guess that's what happens when people are so unused to seeing beards.