Nail Salons

I've been a bit out of touch recently with this dear blog, but with good reason. My law school apps are due March 1st and I'm freaking the heck out. I really hope all this effort pays off and I at the least, get into a school. Any school. BU was the first pick, but the realistic side of me knows I'm better off to put my money on Suffolk or Northeastern, which both have fabulous programs.... Anyways, if I'm a bit distant, dear blog, do not take it personally.

Well, I wanted to make you aware of a project I've just begun. This is a project within a project. I first visited a particular beauty salon on Charles street in Boston in October because my Florida toes were looking Massachusetts pale. I stumbled upon this salon in the Back Bay area which is a high class part of town with cobble streets, fancy chocolatiers and French cafes. The salon is run by an older South Asian woman and all of the beauticians are young and also South Asian, primarily Vietnamese. My first time I was manicured by a girl named Mimi and just this Friday by a girl named Tina. Mimi hardly spoke to me mainly because she her English was quite broken. Tina on the other hand filled me in on a lot. She informed me on Friday that she works 60-70 hours a week and only gets one day off per week. She also said she came to the States as an International Student but only completed 2 months of the schooling. I had heard this same story from another girl in salon back in October. Tina also told me she has a 10th month daughter and a husband and she wanted me to know that she loves American food, especially a tuna sub from Subway. We chatted almost the entire time and Ted asked her a few questions about her family, which we found is still in Vietnam and has never visited her in the States. When I tipped Tina at the end she very awkwardly received the money..

The craziest part is this notebook the girls kept scribbling in. Both Ted and I noticed this. Every time one of them started or completed a service to a customer they wrote down the time and their initials. How odd, I kept thinking. But then I realized that the girls without customers were fiddling on cell phones, eating or talking. Perhaps they were only getting paid for the time they serviced their customers??? So does Tina work 12 hours but only get paid for 6?

I'm skeptical, very skeptical. I want to assume nothing, but my spirit senses a few,big, red flags. What also makes me wary are the reviews for this salon. I checked it out on Yelp or Yahoo, one of those, and in several reviews women state that they went back for the same manicurist, but she was gone. I read this probably 3 times. This is huge to me.....these women could be bound in slavery..

For now my plan is to visit this salon 1x a week or so for a month, keep talking to Tina, talk with some of the other girls and maybe report it. I need to learn how to best report it. When i do blogger, you'll be the first to know.