I need a haircut in the worst way. I hate having this amorphous mop of hair.

Usually I shave my head every couple months. It always grows back really quickly. Not long after I arrived in Korea I ordered some hair clippers off G-Market, the world’s flashiest Internet shopping site. I shaved my head as per usual and went to work the next day feeling all clean and confident and super well-groomed.

Little did I know that shaving your head is not something that’s really done here. It typically means you’ve suffered some heavy-duty personal trauma, like catching the cancer or having your wife die on you or having your team lose at soccer or something. So I showed up one fine Monday morning with my new hairdo and the entire school flipped out.

And when I say “flipped out,” I mean it in the ninja sense, as in everyone went crazy and started killing each other and maiming people in the classrooms. Students were slamming one another’s heads against the floor. Teachers were slicing students and hacking them up with swords and machetes. There was blood everywhere.

Blood ran down the walls and human gore dripped from the ceiling.

The Vice-Principal came running up to me in the hallway. She shouted “Pee-leep! Are you OK! What is wrong with you!” and then she stabbed the janitor right in the eye with a silver chopstick.

I said, “Hey, hey don’t worry. It all grows back.”