Sunday, July 28, 2013

The Massage

I've never had a massage before. Yes, I really haven't (at least the ones that you pay for). That is, until last week.

The week prior had been especially trying (as most people justify in their minds that their week is harder and more difficult than anyone else's ever) since work had really just worn me out. The constant traveling and heat, coupled with there always being people everywhere always was just enough to make me want to start stabbing myself in the eye with anything that came into view. This would probably unsuccessful since I see a lot of rice and noodles. 

Friday progressed as usual; work was finished and Jake and I decided to venture to the store to replenish our juice supply before the weekend. Walking around the packed Wal-Mart, Jake had, what I could call an, "I'm not dealing with this anymore," moment.

"We're getting massages." he said. The week had done him in as well, enough that he needed another human to rub his body and then he would pay them. With that, he pulled out his phone and called one of our friends to help us set up an appointment for later that night. I've never had a massage before, I thought to myself. Please don't let things get weird.

A couple hours later, we were entering a large building that was neighbor to a, for lack of better words, pseudo-hooker palace. Jake had informed me that this was a Thai massage parlor and that our friend Nicholas would meet us there. 

Upon arrival, the staff gave us black rubber sandals that had been warmed, as if by putting them inside a microwave and hitting the popcorn setting. This was surprisingly comfortable as I was escorted into the room where we would be receiving our massages. After the staff opened the door, three beds lay in front of me each with crisp white sheets and two large pillows that appeared incredibly soft like clouds unaffected by the Chinese pollution. We were instructed to take a seat and relax (which is a word that I've learned is a staple in Chinese culture) until the staff returned and dropped off on each of our beds a small plastic bag. The bags were clear and inside I could see the contents consisted of what looked to be an outfit.

"Change!" our friend Nicholas urged. We opened the bags and discarded the wrapping and unfolded a pair of blue shorts and blue shirt. Both were embroidered with gold vine-like designs that wrapped up and down the fabric in a way that suggested they were royal. The shorts and shirt themselves resembled what would closely resemble a pair of pajamas a middle aged man had obtained in his early teens and had decided to keep despite the fact they began to climb up his body.

I quickly slipped into my new outfit and resumed my seat on the bed when three masseuses entered the room. My first initial thought was that we had ordered the wrong kind of massage due to how these women were dressed. Each girl was wearing a dress that resembled a flight attendants uniform. Though, these flight attendants were most likely starring in an adult film. The blue fabric clung close to their body as the neckline dove down to areas unknown. The hem ventured into the area that most would describe as "swimsuit" zone and this only made me convinced that I might be seeing more of her than she would of me (not that I wanted to be naked in front of a masseuse).
"Chinese medicine!...for your kidneys."

Not speaking any Chinese to understand, the girl motioned for me to lay on my stomach while she plopped the pillow down at the foot of the bed and began to rub my back.

"Nicholas, do they offer any other services here, like having your feet cleaned?" Jake asked, motioning towards his well-trodden feet, covered in the days dirt.


"Oh yes, yes! Would you like them to do that now?" Without hesitation, Nicholas proceeded to speak to the girls in Chinese as they left the room to prepare to take care of our feet.

"Well, we don't have to today..." Jake said, "I was just wondering if they did. But I guess now is good too."

The three returned with buckets full of scalding hot water and motioned for us to dunk our feet in. I looked down at the bucket in front of my bed and saw the steam radiating upwards and knew this wasn't going to be without pain. Not wanting to be "that guy" that takes his sweet time to actually take the dive into the pool, I plunged my feet into the water and silently screamed in my head. I wasn't exactly sure how to deal with this pain and the only thing around me to distract myself with was the television that was blaring the Chinese version of the popular TV show, "The Voice." I had to surmise that everyone that entered into this competition had surprisingly sad back-stories, like severe anal bleeding as a child or a cruel encounter with a wombat, and that gave them a certain star appeal. It was certainly enough appeal that our masseuses paid more attention to the screen than they did to our feet.

After pulling my feet out of the water, the masseuse gently rubbed my feet,which I will admit felt rather good. Other than the occasional urge to laugh when she trickled her fingernails down the arch of my foot, she did a nice job.

"What services would you like to receive?" Nicholas chimed in from his neighbor bed. We were to be given three out of five services that night: A foot scraping (that Jake was currently participating in), a facial scrub, a hand treatment, an ear cleaning, or an eyelid cleaning. As enticing as it was to have someone stick their fingers into my ears or near my eyeballs, I opted for feet, face, and hands.

With a quick jump, the masseuse and her small dress were now on my bed and she had rested the fluffy pillow onto her lap. She sat cross-legged and motioned for me to lay down my head, basically right in between her thighs. Jake later mentioned that this was "the closest we had been to lady parts since birth." All the while I was having my face rubbed up and down, another man went to work on my feet. With a small headlamp that one might wear if they were going spelunking, the man took what looked to be some sort of dull razor and scraped away the dead skin on the bottom of my feet and between my toes. He looked to be some sort of explorer, searching beneath the crust of an ancient artifact, while I wriggled beneath a girl with her hands on my face as I stifled my laughter.

To add to my feet, the masseuses went out and brought in what appeared to be some sort of putty. "It's a mixture of ginger and crushed pearls." Nicholas told us. Pearls? Pearls? Huh, all of the sudden I was feeling like some kind of classy individual. That is, until my feet started to burn once they poured this mixture on. "Oh yes, it will start to burn your feet." Nicholas mentioned. Yes, yes it did. They had poured some sort of pearl concrete onto our feet where we sit and burn. I was starting to get the distinct impression that most Chinese medicine consisted of copious amounts of pain.

With my feet cleaned off, the real massage began. The masseuse hopped back up onto the bed and proceeded to set my legs on top of hers. This is the part of the massage I had actually been expecting, the part where a stranger rubs your body for an extended period of time and you tell yourself that everything feels better. Then I quickly reminded myself how Chinese medicine didn't work that way.

No sooner had she rubbed my legs had the masseuse moved onto my stomach. With force, she pressed both hands down hard into the area that would be where my bladder resides along with many other vital organs. I could only imagine the surprise of many other previous patrons that had experienced the same thing unprepared but with less bowel control. Oh, please let these sheets have been bleached...

"Would you like something to eat?" Nicholas chimed in through my stomach rub. Eating had been the last thing I had really expected after I had received a massage. Apparently, it was customary to try and include everything you could into one large package. I wonder if they also included dinner theatre? No, I think the farthest they would probably go is to include someone punching you in the spleen to deal with digestive health; as Chinese medicine does.





Monday, July 15, 2013

Songs For Your Bowels

Since living in China, I've had people at home ask me about my experiences living here. Thinking about it, one would usually hope to hear some story about a great cultural experience where I saw something that, "I'll never forget," or that "My life has been forever changed."

While I would like to tell them such things, I usually opt for a much different path:

My bowels.

Yes, when people ask me what is going on in China I tell them about my current bowel movements. Basically since living here, my GI tract has decided that it was no longer going to function at 100% ability and instead function at about, I'd say, 36%. All the plumbing is seriously jacked up.

Since I started spending an inordinate amount of time sitting down wishing I could just die instead of enduring the bathroom agony, I began thinking of inspiration or motivation. Purely, the motivation to try and get through your bowel movement that has quarantined you to the toilet seat. I figured that everyone in the world poops and that I'm not the only one who has had problems. I would even venture to say that everyone has, at one point, sat on a toilet for much longer than they desired to. With this in mind, I decided that the world needed a motivational playlist to get through this. This way, when you rest your hands on your head and wish that this moment in your life would cease to exist, you can listen to some tunes that will power you through...your dump.

1. Sweet Nothing (feat. Florence Welch) by Calvin Harris
Because maybe you've had sweet nothings for long enough. Yes, you GI tract. Please stop giving me sweet nothing.

2. Radioactive by Marina and The Diamonds
We all know that you've been in the bathroom for about a half hour. It's quite obvious that anyone else who wants to enter in the next 3 hours needs a hazmat suit.

3. Lonely Boy by The Black Keys
Just listen. Listen. This will help you when you're crying and realize that you--YOU are the lonely boy. Hopefully, you won't be alone for long.

4. Gimme More by Britney Spears

Gimme more! OoooOooo!

5. Mirror by Justin Timberlake

I can see you sitting there, looking at yourself in the mirror--CAUSE I DON'T WANNA LOSE YOU NOW, I'M LOOKIN' RIGHT AT THE OTHER HALF OF ME.

6. Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall
There definitely is some serious waterfall going on...

7.I Feel It All by Feist
You're feeling it all. Just...so many feels.

8.Die Young by Ke$ha
That's really all you're hoping for right now. You thought it was a good idea to eat that block of cheddar cheese. Boy, you were wrong...

9.Let's Have A Kiki by The Scissor Sisters
"I'm gonna let you have it--NOT" said the intestines.

So there you have it. A quick playlist that you can jam to and try and survive your short isolation from the real world while you enter the world of the porcelain throne. There isn't any rule that says you have to agree with me on any song in this list, I'm just trying to help. So put on your game face and step up to the plate. Because in the game of porcelain thrones, you win...or you die.



Monday, July 8, 2013

The Self Crusade

Self-image is always a weird thing for me. I wouldn't say that I have terribly low self-esteem or low self-image, but on a spectrum, I also wouldn't venture to say that I'm up at the top. What I consider the top, I consider, "Wow, look at my sculpted abs and biceps and tell me how pretty I am because I can cut diamonds on my gluts."...or something like that. Mostly, I would just say that I really don't have to be reminded of how I look very often unless I'm standing in front of a mirror trying to pop a zit.

Since I've moved to China, this is not the case. Upon arrival, there was some sort of magical wave I walked through when I left the airport that told everyone to stare. Stare at me. Just keep staring. Without shame.

At first, this was a little disconcerting. All I had to think in my head was, "They know. They know that I'm not from here and they hate me. They think I'm weird and am wondering why I even got on the plane in the first place." While some of that could be true (since I'm just speculating here), I've been informed a lot of the time that this stare is associated with pretty, handsome, good-looking, and maybe even exotic. Haha, me? Handsome, you say? I began taking this with the mindset that this was what you did when you met someone: you give them compliments."Oh, I really like the color of your shoes." "Your hair looks very nice today." "You look much better in jeans and a t-shirt than in an orange jumpsuit."

Over time though, I find myself beginning to think a little bit differently. This constant barrage or compliments has begun to inflate my ego. I find myself sitting on the bus, watching young teenage girls trying to take a picture of me discretely and thinking to myself, "You know what's going on."

Huh?

Who is that person talking? Where most places I would consider myself plain, they have started to give me fodder to flame a small ego into a bonfire. I've recently started watching an obscene amount of America's Next Top Model* and found myself thinking how vain a lot of these girls are. "Wow, these girls are so vain; deep as puddles, they are." Then I thought back to myself and how the kids in kindergarten had told me I looked "like a movie star." Then I sit there with a stupid grin on my face.

Part of me would like to sit here and soak up the flood of compliments that come in, but it only makes me wonder where this is coming from. Yes, I am concerned about the self-image of the Chinese people.

While a lot of Chinese do not actually believe that I'm American (brown skin, dark hair, brown eyes), sometimes they tell me that I look kind of like northern Chinese. "Don't worry, they are very beautiful!" They tell me if this subject is approached. I'm usually not worried when someone gives me a compliment, but it's the fact that they have to clarify that this specific Chinese people are "beautiful" or "pretty" or "handsome."

"This can only be due to a general lack of self-image in the Chinese culture itself," I concluded. Somehow, I must fix this or at least ensure some kind of self-worth in these people. I've overcome bad body image (somewhat) and I can do it to them to!

"You're handsome." They will say.

"No, YOU'RE handsome!" I will say to the old woman on the bus.

I can hear now of all the ballads they will play after I leave their country. How I transformed every person into a proud creature who had some pride in their heritage. It would be me who led the "March of Self Image" down the streets of Zhengzhou where everyone could proudly say they were Chinese! Oh, what a glorious day that would be. I can only picture myself on a float, hoisted above the rest surveying my movement...

Then I find myself walking down the street, ready to start changing the world with a new positive attitude. I smile at the passersby while they stare with a rather blank expression. I pass children and then an old man where I hear a noise. A deep, guttural noise that sounds as if the phlegm he is trying to expel is connected to his very soul. Said phlegm then lands next to my right foot in a sad, yellow puddle, that slowly drips into the cracks where it will remain for the next few hours (possibly accompanied by others).

With my day spit upon, I walk down the street. Eventually, I get onto the bus where I'll sit down with a sour look on my face while I think to myself, "China can fix its own damn self-image problem."



*Don't judge, it's a fascinating show. Girls fighting over who gets to be prettiest doing ridiculous things to prove that they are "tougher than the rest." Someone always has a sob-story background and they all hate each other. The reality show fodder!


Saturday, July 6, 2013

It's A Vlog, Yo'

So I never thought that I'd get out a camera to show people what I was doing. But after moving to China, people (*cough mother cough*) keep asking to see things. Since I don't want to be sending a superfluous amount of pictures of the internet, I decided to film myself. This time, I went to the store.

I just have to say: please excuse the shakiness of the camera and the excessive wind. Also, the fast filming, low voice, and close-ups of my face. Sometimes, I just get carried away and now I have this video baby. Who knows if it will become any kind of normal baby, but it has been birthed.