 "Full body
massage, please," I requested. "Where do I change?"
"Just take your jacket off," was the response. You can leave
the rest of your clothes on.
Well, this confused me somewhat. And my notion of naked men and women
being deceived took an immediate jolt.
The massage room was adjacent to the reception room, but was only accessible
from the main street. So I walked back outside and into the large studio
next door with 4 massage tables, without any privacy screens, lined up
about half a metre (18 inches) apart. Two of these were occupied by fully-clothed
men being massaged and looking very relaxed. Because of the cold weather,
I was wearing layers and layers of clothes. But I couldn't imagine
leaving them all on for the duration of the massage. I was sure I'd
boil up. So I ducked into the toilets to get changed.
Now this isn't such an easy procedure in China. Chinese toilets are quite
archaic. First of all there's no seat, as such, just a hole in the floor.
But more relevant to my point is that the floors are never clean. You
wouldn't dare let any of your clothes touch the wet (rarely water) and
dirty floor. So it was quite a challenge taking off a pair of long johns,
a jumper and a skivvy in the crammed toilet. I had to be extra careful
not to step on the floor with my socks, or let my trousers touch it while
I was taking my long johns off. And just in case you ever find yourself
in the same predicament, let me advise you that the "hang-your-clothes-around-your-neck"
technique works best in conjunction with the "take- one- shoe- off-
and- hold- your- pant- leg- up- off- the- floor- while- balancing- on-
the- other- leg- and- removing- one- long- john- leg- before- replacing-
your- bare- leg- back- into- your- trouser- leg- and- finally- inserting-
your- foot- back- into- your- shoe" technique. Of course, you'd repeat
this technique for the other leg as well. So back into the studio I emerged
wearing my trousers and a T-shirt. There were cupboards under the massage
tables, so my clothes, wallet and shoes ended up in there.
And then I saw my masseur, dressed in a white lab coat, being led to
me by a sighted assistant. He was Chinese and fairly young. Maybe 25 years
of age. And his narrow eyes flickered constantly and uncontrollably. As
he got closer I noticed that I could only see the whites of his eyes.
Then at closer inspection, I noticed a faint grey area in place of the
rich blue or brown pupils that sighted people take so much for granted.
And as if to remove any skerrick of doubt left in my mind about the genuineness
of his blindness, I noticed that he was missing most of the fingers on
his left hand. In a straight line, from the first knuckle on his thumb,
to the tip of his little finger, everything north was missing. Obviously
due to a tragic accident involving a sharp knife or something similar.
This guy was as blind as he could get. So now I was just going to focus
on the massage.
Now I've had a number of massages in my time, but nothing quite
like this one. A Chinese Massage has very little to do with pampering,
and everything to do with torturing! This is not something for the fainthearted.
Starting off seemed innocent enough. I lay face down with my head in
the hole at the top of the massage table, and my masseur placed a small,
white cotton sheet over my back which he began to smooth out in long,
but firm strokes with his open palm. This was soon followed up with circular
rubbing still confined to my back. The third stage, unfortunately, was
the longest stage. This is where he proceeded to push and poke and prod
my back with the tips of his fingers, his knuckles, the balls of his palms
and his elbows. Whereas stages 1 and 2 could only be described as soothing
and relaxing, my experience from this stage ranged from painful to excruciating.
But this was just a softener for stage 4. Even though this was a much
shorter stage, I was slapped and punched (much like a punching bag) until
I felt like my body had been beaten to a pulp!
But did I scream or shout? Not on your life! I'm much too macho
for that. But maybe I should've. Then maybe he'd have eased
up a bit.
The procedure I've just described was repeated for my arms and
legs as well... on both sides! The only difference was that when
I was laying face up, I couldn't hide the look of agony and silent
screams any more... except from my blind tormentor. He was oblivious to
the pain and agony I was going through. Or was he?
The finishing touch, my face massage, was rather interesting. Before
beginning, he was led away to wash his hands. And on his return went through
exactly the same procedure as he'd done before, except without the
cotton sheet. An interesting technique he used was when he massaged my
ears. After rubbing them for what seemed like an eternity, he then turned
my head to one side, folded my ear over, covered it with his palm and
tapped the back of his hand very rapidly, just like a doctor does when
he's checking your breathing with a stethoscope. This sent a muted
echo through my head. Not an unpleasant experience.
Needless to say, by the end of stage 4 on my face, I felt like mush?
Should I get up? Or should I just lay there a while longer. I chose to
stay there and suffer in silence.
Other Articles by Jame Taris:
Shopping in Shanghai
GG Birds
Excerpt taken from Aussie Guest in China, written by James Taris.
For more information about the book, go to
http://www.jamestaris.com/ebook-AussieGuestInChina.htm
For more information about James Taris and his other books, go to
http://www.JamesTaris.com
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