China, Part 3

Yesterday I decided to get a massage at the hotel where I'm staying. The 3 days prior, I hadn't slept more than 8 hours. Total, not per night. And the thing is, when it's been 3 days of very little sleep, it's surprisingly difficult to just lie down and get to sleep at night. So, I thought I needed some relaxation.

The massage was really nice; one of the best I'd ever had. Very swedish-like with aromatherapy kind of oils, one hour of muscle rubbing, all that stuff. Your typical massage.

Today, one of the women that works for the printer where I'm doing press checks offered to take me out for my first Traditional Chinese Foot Massage. I accepted, as I had spent the morning hiking in a nearby park up and down stone steps for about 2 hours. I was beat, and wanted some foot love.

FYI, in China, "Foot Massage" means 2-hour whole-body massage, ending in a foot massage.

I sat down in a chair that resembled the chairs one sits in when getting a pedicure at a nice nail salon. I was then asked to sit up and put my feet in almost boiling-hot water while a man got behind me and started massaging my shoulders. Painfully.

The woman who took me there, a native speaker of Mandarin, told him at my request to take it easy as I had just had a massage the day before and had tender muscles. He responded with "She just needs to relax and it won't hurt". I thought, no, other way around. Don't hurt me and my muscles will happily relax. I was certain this was not to happen.

However, after a bit of time, I just decided to do what I do when in yoga and in a difficult, painful pose...breathe. It worked, kind of. The massage progressed to my back, then he beat my back and asked me to lie down on his lap.

Yeah, I thought this was weird too. But everyone else was doing it and didn't look like they were feeling taken advantage of, so I rolled with it. Nothing weird there. Apparently he just wanted to massage the muscles in my back with his knees. Which hurt like hell once he started massaging my spine with his knees. I don't think the spine is meant to be massaged with bone tissue.

"Oh my GOD" he says. In english. I think this was the only english he knew.

He complained to my host in Mandarin that I was too tense and wouldn't relax. I told her that it was my muscles, not me. I was trying to relax. My muscles were in pain and not interested in further treatment, so they were tensing to send the message to back the fuck off already.

He asked me to sit up, then grabbed my head in a weird way and pulled up. CRACK went my neck, then he pulled my arm across my body and before I knew it, cracked my back. Then the same on the other side. All of a sudden I no longer felt tense. My muscles gave up the battle.

More back knee massaging followed, until he felt I was adequately tenderized. I sat up and he began looking at my feet.

"Oh my GOD" he says again. My host laughed and told me that he wanted to shave the calluses off my feet. I said fine, as long as it didn't hurt. Everyone laughed, except me, horrified at the shame of my overly callused feet.

Then I finally got my foot massage, which was wonderful. And he then took out something that looked like a glass light bulb without the metal bits, sprayed alcohol in it and lit it on fire. And then stuck it on my feet, twisting it as though he were screwing in a lightbulb.

He said in Mandarin "This will rid your body of it's humanity. Your body has too much wet. You need to eat less cold food, only hot food. This will help you sleep better tonight. You will see."

What could I say? I had lightbulbs stuck to my arches. I rolled with it.

The thing is, now that the massage is done, I feel amazing. I didn't think I would because of the excrutiating pain I was in during the process, but I really feel like I did a great workout and I just need a short stretch and I'll be ready for bed. And my feet feel amazing, like walking on pillows.

Who knew? 2-hour relax is just as good as 5-minute relax.