Plucking Grey Hairs brings notoriety strife in the West

Plucking grey hair with your family member is a right of passage in Vietnamese culture, as in many Asian cultures. I could name you the countless times where I’m on my phone or in my room and my mum or aunties would just start going through my hair, or the occasions where I see my parents squatted on the bathroom floor taking turns to pluck each other’s grey’s. There’s a sense of intimacy in this process. It’s an act of service, analogous to cooking food, that conveys a deep sense of love.

So, when I read about Ocean Vuong, an acclaimed Vietnamese-American poet whose extracts were used in the HSC English exams - one which depicted the protagonist plucking hairs from this grandmother’s head - I couldn’t help but laugh. To be fair, I understand the confusion and some of the Insta DMs sent to Vuong were pretty funny (my favourite was one sent by a student’s mother who asked, “Can you send me more information? My son tried to write about your text today and he still didn’t know what it’s about”). Equally, it is so incredibly refreshing to see that the act of plucking hair - so normalised in my home and so culturally innocuous - given some light in the West.

- Isabella