Massages in China

Me and the girls getting ready for our massages!

I've been thinking about writing a lot recently due to the fact that it was my one year anniversary from my college graduation.  A lot of my posts have been reporting things I have done and updating everyone on the decisions I have been thinking about making.  So, now I will be trying to write more detailed and humor filled posts, as most of my experiences in China are amazing and quite hilarious, so they deserve more to them then the brief mentions.  This post will be looking at my Chinese massage experiences.

After one really long teaching weekend during my first semester the whole team decided to go for a massage together at this new massage place. The massage place was called the Royal Palace Massage City.  When walking in you are impressed by the beauty and elegance of the place.  You are greeted by two beautiful women dressed up in gorgeous dresses.  All the men in the front were dressed in suits and honestly made me think they were undercover agents for the Chinese government.  This was the first massage in China I had ever done so I just followed everyone else.  We all took off our shoes of which they took away and gave us room keys and flip flops.  

During this night we had three guys and three girls, so the girls all had a room together and two

of the guys got a room together and the other a private room.  The rooms were super nice, fancy beds that leaned up or dow for your comfort and a TV you could watch, free drinks and snacks, plus if you wanted to stay the night to rest you could.  You get to choose a man or a woman masseuse, so me and a friend of mine chose a woman and the other chose a male.  We opened our package of clothes and changed quickly.  Our masseuses came in two girls and one guy.  The girls were dressed very slutty...  And I don't say that lightly; stiletto heels, tight pink shirt and a black mini skirt.  That was our first clue as to what kind of massage place this was.  

See? Those clothes aren't very professional

Most of the masseuses came by the room to see us foreigners, which was sort of normal for us.  They soon brought in a big wooden bucket full of water. I could see the steam coming from my bucket and my masseuse, who was a kind of macho looking chick but still very pretty, grabbed my feet and put them into the water.  THE WATER WAS THE TEMPERATURE of HELL!  I was lucky I didn't knock her out with how fast I removed my feet.  I thought my skin had burned off.  I knew Chinese liked to drink hot water, but to burn off their skin was a new thing for me.  At the point I had yelled a lot about how hot it was and my friends were also saying how hot the water was, thank god I wasn't alone.  They brought us some other water that wasn't hot and poured it in.  After awhile I dipped my feet back in, which I don't think it was any less hotter, but that instead all of the feeling in my feet had burned away.

After the foot massage they began the actual massage, everything was going alright besides my masseuses clothes which kept not covering enough.  We were soon flipped onto our backs, one of my friends had the male masseuse and he was quite faster than mine.  I liked all my back massages before, which were by male and female masseuses, so I wasn't worried about this one.  

Then it happened.  All the pain came.  My masseuse was SO STRONG.  I was literally wiggling and grunting in pain as she was massaging me.  At that point I hadn't learned the words for "stop" or "you're too strong" or "be more gentle".  I just kept chanting "You're so strong.  Why do you enjoy hurting people! I'm in so much pain." Honestly, I don't think I would have remembered at that moment even if I did know them.  My friends were laughing at my pain, as most friends do, which for some reason we never take offense to later on because oh yeah we would've laughed too.  Then the strangest thing happened, my masseuse started laughing at me and so did the other two.  I realized she understood me and repeated my "So strong."  I wish she actually knew what it meant because she really just kept getting stronger.  The Chinese way for a massage is literally to hurt you because then they started to pinch me everywhere!  PINCHING hurts!!! I found no meaning for the pinches.  

Bowling water!!!

• Side Note: To show you how crazy some Chinese traditions for medicine or getting better are: When you aren't sleeping correctly or you're sick Chinese will smack the inside of your elbow, (that place where they take blood from you) and HIT IT HARD.  They will take turns hitting you until you bleed.  If you bleed red you are healthy, but if you bleed black you are sick (all I could think if you bleed black is that you are an alien).  I nearly fainted when I saw my CT's doing this and they saw my face of absolute horror and laughed. 

Next on the massage schedule was our thighs.  As I said earlier my friend with the male masseuse was a lot quicker than me and my other friend.  When we heard her squeal of surprise and hysterical laughter we were quite surprised.  We asked her what was wrong because her face was red and her masseuse looked confused.  

"My masseuse just touched my foofy!"  I had no idea what a foofy was till that night - means the vajayjay (well at least to my friend it does).

I was shocked, especially when I realized that me and my friend were next for that body part massage.  The masseuses were talking to each other, the poor male masseuse looked frightened.  Me and my friend immediately blocked that part ourselves and shook our heads no.  I also added in the Chinese words for "No want!"  We all then covered our breasts and said no as well.  We could hear next door the boys giggling and we suspected they also figured out what the massage really entailed.

After the massage we sat reminiscing about our experiences, while watching some lions take down an antelope.  My friends husband came into our room. he was the one who got his own private room.  We asked him how it was.  (Dialogue as best as I can remember it)

Him: "It sucked. She didn't even smile at me.  I could hardly feel anything and she was so lazy."

Foofy (Her nickname for the story): "I got violated and fondled on my foofy."

Me: "I was burned, pinched and broken by my masseuse."

Him:  "I wish I was violated.  I didn't even get a whole massage, it only lasted 30 minutes."

His wife: "Hey!" --> It's okay she got a male masseuse the next time we went :) See the picture!

The male was a better masseuse she said.

Him: "Just kidding.  I love you."

The other boys came in from their massage and told us about their similar experiences, but well the guy version.  They also told us about how they could hear us screaming and laughing through the walls.

The guys looking good!

Later on that week we learned that that massage place wasn't in a great part of town, so most of their customers come for "extra" services by the masseuses.  For some reason none of us were very surprised by this, but we decided not to go back to that place for well the obvious reasons.

The second massage experience in another place was a lot better.  We got to share the room with all the boys, which made it much funnier.  Although I still got the strongest woman and screamed a lot about how strong she was and I got pinched (it's a Chinese thing I guess).  

The added bonus was they treated us like circus people, so basically we were turned into pretzels.

See? A Pretzel!