Stranger In a Strangely Colorful Land

On my first day in New York, I was enchanted: Colorful hair bobbed up and down all around me. It shone in the sun. It looked so beautiful to me; I had seen only black and gray hair in my native Japan.

I knew that people living in America had hair of many colors - red, blond, brown, black - and in many shades. I had seen Americans with their colorful hair in Japan. Now I was in the midst of all this beautiful hair. It made an amazingly strong impression on me.

When I saw pale purple hair and green hair, I realized people could wear their hair in any color!

I noticed the colors of eyes, too: blue eyes, green eyes, gray eyes, brown eyes, dark eyes in various shades. Most people don't think eyes are as colorful as hair, but to me they were! I was accustomed to seeing only dark eyes in Japan.

I had to get used to talking with blue-eyed people. If a man with dark-brown eyes spoke to me, I could tell that he was looking at me and speaking to me. But if a blue-eyed person - or anyone with light-colored eyes - spoke to me, I couldn't tell where the person was looking. Was he looking at me? Talking to me? I couldn't tell. Many times I thought that a blue-eyed person was talking to someone behind me. But when I turned around to look, there was no one there. I was so embarrassed. But I could only see the blue sky in their blue eyes.

Nowadays, things are drastically changing again.

Recently, I saw from a distance what I thought was a lady wearing a pink cap. But as she came nearer, I realized she had pink hair.

Then I saw a man whose hair was streaked with bold pink and blue stripes! After my initial shock, I thought maybe he had been painting. I checked his clothes, but there were no paint spots or splashes.

And now people are talking about tinted contact lenses.

I'm still prepared to be surprised by hair colors and eye colors! (Incidentally, my own hair color and eye color are natural - 100 percent.)