It's a wondrous thing to c how this city is run. Those of us who live here complain about every little inconvenience. But the truth is that it's close to a miracle that this super complicated home of 10 million people using thousands of businesses, vehicles, buildings, roads, and connectors of every kind stays up & running 24/7/365 !

Nail Salons

Hi All.

We women have all had the uncomfortable experience of manicurists/pedicurists conversing with each other in foreign languages.  So annoying!   So when I read the recent New York Times article about these women's experience, I felt compelled to share.  Following are excerpts from that article; nothing more for me to say.

"...$100...the fee the salon owner charges each new employee for her job."
"She would work for no wages, subsisting on meager tips, until her boss decided she was skillful enough to merit a wage...[t]hirty dollars a day."
"Workers endure all manner of humiliation, including having their tips docked as punishment for minor transgressions, constant video monitoring by owners, even physical abuse."
"...starting wage of $10 a day."
"...$1.50 an hour during a 66-hour workweek..."
"Workers of Korean descent routinely earn twice as much as their peers..."
Chinese workers occupy the next rung in the hierarchy; Hispanics and other non-Asians are at the bottom."
"...routinely work up to 12 hours a day, six or even seven days a week."
"...Hispanic colleagues were made to sit in silence during their entire 12-hour shifts, while the Korean manicurists were free to chat,"
",,,had to eat lunch every day standing in a kitchenette with the shop's other non-Korean workers, while her Korean counterparts ate at their desks."

(The High Price of Pretty Nails, New York Times, May 10, 2015)

What more can I say?

The nail salons reviewed for this article were all in New York -- and all parts of New York.  The Upper West Side, the Village, the Upper East Side, and the boroughs.  What is unfortunate is that, as a result of this exposure, NYC or NYS will begin regulating nail salons ... salons will close ... many, many jobs will be lost by women with few or no options ... and the cost of manicures will jump up like crazy.

Life in these here United States.  Sigh. 

It's not WHAT you know.
It's what you DO with what you know.

He'd been through it during the Holocaust. He'd seen family members killed, been beaten, seen corpses stacked on the way to the crematorium ... All by the tender age of nine.

He kept it all to himself ... For almost 60 years. Never even shared with his wife or kids.  And now, at 80, he has written a book and is speaking at schools all over the country.

This story resonated with me.  African Americans seldom give voice to the pain, damage, trauma and intergenerational trauma of those violent and terrifying centuries of our history.  Why don't we recount and revisit?  Reflect, express and heal?

This man ... Tomi Reichenthal ... tries to explain.  "It's not that I didn't want to speak about it before.  It's just that I couldn't.  There are thousands like me.  I believe it's nature's way of allowing people to deal with things."

That's as good a reason as any I've heard ... Especially since DENIAL is what I generally hear when I ask. A big, thick, brick, angry wall of denial.  "We are fine!  No self-hatred here.  No damage.  No healing necessary. They're the ones who gotta learn.  I am just fine."

We can't talk about it all yet.  We can't dig around in the pain and fear and sadness. Maybe that's just nature's way.

He was an expert on child's play ... A developmental psychologist who spent his career studying play.

He abhorred the abolishing of recess ... And the advent of helicopter parents.

"Games are rites of passage," he said.  "The player performs a task, gains acceptance of his comrades and experiences success.  It's playing out an analogy of life."

Remembering double dutch, tag and ringalevio ... I have to completely agree.