Massage

Well, I'm back in the US, and about halfway over my jetlag, so I suppose it's time to start catching up on the blogging. Looking at my notes, it turns out the first thing I'm supposed to write about is massage, which turns out to be timely, because I really wish I could have one.

One of the greatest things about China is the foot massages. Whoever the person is who figured out all the pressure points in the foot is a god and I will worship them forever. Even though everything in the little college enclave town where we were staying was pretty much closed, Marcus managed to find a foot massage place, and then told all the rest of us about it, quickly causing us to become regulars. The people there must have been thrilled to have such a huge group of stressed out foreigners suddenly patronizing them repeatedly.

I didn't go the first night that a large group was organized, as I was waiting for an international phone call. The next day, though, Lee wanted to go back, so I went with him. We were shown into a room with big cushy chairs and served tea and the ubiquitous watermelon. Then our foot massage people came in with tubs of very hot water to soak our feet in while they sort of shook out our hands and arms. I got a nice young guy, while Lee got a young woman with (I would find out later) very strong fingers. I'm not sure how relaxing this particular foot massage was for Lee, because our two people were very curious about our group and talked to him the whole time. It was fun for me, because this was the night that I realized I had been in China long enough to pick up a lot of the basic gist of the conversation. It helped that Lee was getting to have the same conversation he had with pretty much every Chinese person we met: Are you Chinese? Where are you from? When did you move from Taiwan? etc, etc.

Back to the actual massage, though. For people who don't know, the foot has pressure points connected to organs all over a person's body. A trained foot masseur/masseuse can tell what's wrong with you just by the various points of tension in your foot. Of course, they then try to correct the problems by trying to mash the knots to death, which is not always the most relaxing experience, but do you ever feel good afterward. That night, Lee translated for me that apparently I was not getting enough sleep, but only mentioned later that I was also proclaimed "not very healthy." I'm pretty certain that if I kept getting foot massages, I'd get healthier.

At the end, after they finished doing both feet and calves, they did our backs briefly, which I, of course, thought was a fabulous ending. Then we were left to gather ourselves and make our way down to the front desk to pay. $5 for 70 minutes. If that's not enough to make you love China, I don't know what is.