I'm aware that I have now been back in Australia longer than I was in China, but I had a very bizarre (but fun?) day in Shanghai that I never got round to writing about.
This all began with the mandatory health check up that all exchange students at SJTU have to do, bizarrely, like 3 months into the semester. The check up was routine enough, in an old first-aid looking room in a building on campus, with an old Chinese man (well he hardly would have been Indian, would he, Sa?). Everything was good but when he got me to bend down and touch my touch he noticed that I winced because, as per usual, my lower back was fucked. He felt around a bit and then gave me a thin-ass slip of paper saying I had to go see these people, and then we were done.
The place was in the CBD. From the name, it seemed like a TCM (traditional Chinese medicine)-type place, so I was expecting that I'd go there, they'd read the slip about what was wrong with me, and then give me some tea leaves or something to drink and that would be it. Oh, how I was wrong.
The first hint of sketchiness was the building itself. Given that it was in the CBD, I was expecting it to be some sort of office building - like a dentist's office. But no, the building I found myself in front of was a hotel, and one that would be max 2 stars. I wasn't completely perturbed yet, because I know lots of hotels have shops and stuff in the lobby, so I figured that it was one of those. I looked through the whole lobby, and none of them looked like medical centres, nor did any of them match the address on the slip. So, finally, I approached a vaguely-concierge looking man and showed him the address. He told me I had to go up to the 3rd floor. I still wasn't particularly disturbed - maybe the first few floors of this hotel are commercial spaces. But alas, when I alighted the lift, I found myself squarely in a corridor of hotel rooms. Still, I followed the numbers until I found the door on the slip, and knocked, wondering if I had been prescribed prostitution.
After like a minute, the door opened, and there were two young girls about my age in a room that, thankfully, looked more like a massage centre and less like a hotel room - it must have been refitted. They were, as usual, very surprised to see a white girl, but I showed them my slip, and they told me to go behind the curtain and take my top and bra off (!!). There were two beds behind the curtain, and I was told to lie down on one of them, so I put my clothes on the other bed - there was no where else to put them. I had seen a shelf stacked with little empty glass jars upside down, so I was beginning to put the pieces together. And indeed, it was confirmed when one of the girls took the jars, started lighting them on fire, and then putting them on my back - they were doing 拔罐: cupping. It's basically a Chinese therapeutic method where jars are out on your body and the air is sucked out of the jar (via pump, or fire beforehand) to pull at your skin.
She didn't talk much, but put the jars on very quickly. In fact, I was amazed by the number of jars she managed to stack on my back (I counted 48); I must have looked like a turtle with a glass shell. After they were all on, sucking at my skin uncomfortably, she put a towel over me and my shell and said to stay like that for 15 minutes. One jar fell off, but other than that the first 5 minutes were a pretty boring time.
5 minutes in, as I have alluded, something happened: there was another knock on the door. The two ladies talked to this woman like an old friend, so I took it she was a regular customer. Anyway, I could hear her lay down on the other bed. One of the girls started talking to her about what she had been eating while massaging (? I couldn't see) her, and literally listing every sort of fruit that exists, and the woman on the bed would reply with if she liked it or not. Apparently, according to the girl, you're not supposed to eat fruit at night. Anyway, the woman started screaming in a way that made me think, in my blinded state, that they were setting fire to her instead of the cups. What I learned when the cups were taken off of me was that they were simply massaging her arms - must have been one hell of a massage. I then deduced, having seen some of the posters in the room, that she was having a weight-loss treatment, where they "break up" the fat on your body. Credible.
When the towel was finally removed off of me, I raised my head, and the weight-loss woman was flabbergasted - first of all, I presume, to see a white girl emerge from the glass shell, and second of all - she said to the girl massaging her: "她要减肥？(She wants to lose weight?)". I presume she thought I was doing the same treatment as her. The girl laughed, and said I was there for back problems.
Anyway, because that woman was now on the other bed, my clothes were no longer there, and I discovered they had been moved to over the curtain in the waiting room area. So there I was, topless, bruised, trying to get my bra on out in the open. It was uncomfortable. But I paid - it cost all of AUD$14 - and left the hotel room, being told not to shower for at least 4 hours. My back was itchy all the way home.
This is what my back looked like afterwards. Apparently the darker the circles, the more "toxins" were present at that point of your body, so I guess my upper back has lots of toxins. Carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders I guess hahaha. I noticed they weren't very dark around my lower back where my problem is, so I don't know what's going on there. It did help a little bit, for a little while, but the seizing up is very much back in action. I've been to a back doctor since, and apparently I have a torn ligament inside the lower right part of my back, which makes sense.
The second half of the day was spent at the Beijing Opera - yes, in Shanghai. The uni gave us free tickets, so Mariana, Nuria, Katya, Viktoria, and I went. We took a Didi because Mariana was still fresh from her operation and couldn't stand up for too long, so I wasn't really paying attention to where we were going. Anyway, we got there around 6, and most of the crowd was old Chinese men and women. We filed into the theatre, and discovered that even though we were a;; seated together in a row, the rows were split in the middle into two different wings, so there was a huge rift between us. It was kind of funny:
The performance was split into two parts. The first, an entree, if you will, was mostly acrobatic: lots of performers flipping and aerialling about. It was very impressive, and whenever something particularly spectacular would happen, the old people in the audience would ejaculate: "好！" ("Good!"), which we found very amusing. Imagine performing and people just yelling "GOOD." at you. Must be reaffirming! There was one particularly enthusiastic man sitting behind us, and some other boys sitting next to them, who must have been other exchange students from SJTU, would play along and shout “好！” every time he did, just as enthusiastically.
This act lasted about half an hour, after which the real deal began. It was an ancient Chinese story, told in ancient lyrical form. (The closest comparison I can think of is Shakespearean language). As such, we had no fucking clue what was going on. Along with the fact that the end notes would be held for a ridiculously long time, during which the old Chinese audience members would gasp "好！" in amazement, I found it almost absurd. I tried really hard to understand, I really did, but even with the subtitles, I had no fucking clue what was going on. Something about Lao Zi and another man fighting philosophically?
It was also really, really long. At one point the lights went on and everyone clapped, and I thought, thank God, it's over, but no - it was just an intermission. We considered leaving at the intermission, but felt guilty and stayed. Every time we were going to leave, we would think, "no, it looks like it's nearly over, we can wait another 10 minutes." This kept happening until the performance actually finished - on a rather inconclusive note, I would say, but I barely understood what was going on, so I might just be stupid.
Relievedly, we walked out the theatre, a different way from which we came, and found ourselves out on the street. I might have been hallucinating, but what did I see to my right, right next to the theatre, if not the very hotel I had been cupped in that afternoon?
We took a Didi back to campus, and shared a very late 11pm dinner together at the trusty 东北人家 on the same street - tomato scrambled eggs (which, apparently, is the national dish of China, because its colours are that of the flag), fried potatoes and beans, and rice.
And then I went home, showered, it being now outside the four-hour window in which I was not allowed to bathe, and slept.
This all began with the mandatory health check up that all exchange students at SJTU have to do, bizarrely, like 3 months into the semester. The check up was routine enough, in an old first-aid looking room in a building on campus, with an old Chinese man (well he hardly would have been Indian, would he, Sa?). Everything was good but when he got me to bend down and touch my touch he noticed that I winced because, as per usual, my lower back was fucked. He felt around a bit and then gave me a thin-ass slip of paper saying I had to go see these people, and then we were done.
The place was in the CBD. From the name, it seemed like a TCM (traditional Chinese medicine)-type place, so I was expecting that I'd go there, they'd read the slip about what was wrong with me, and then give me some tea leaves or something to drink and that would be it. Oh, how I was wrong.
The first hint of sketchiness was the building itself. Given that it was in the CBD, I was expecting it to be some sort of office building - like a dentist's office. But no, the building I found myself in front of was a hotel, and one that would be max 2 stars. I wasn't completely perturbed yet, because I know lots of hotels have shops and stuff in the lobby, so I figured that it was one of those. I looked through the whole lobby, and none of them looked like medical centres, nor did any of them match the address on the slip. So, finally, I approached a vaguely-concierge looking man and showed him the address. He told me I had to go up to the 3rd floor. I still wasn't particularly disturbed - maybe the first few floors of this hotel are commercial spaces. But alas, when I alighted the lift, I found myself squarely in a corridor of hotel rooms. Still, I followed the numbers until I found the door on the slip, and knocked, wondering if I had been prescribed prostitution.
After like a minute, the door opened, and there were two young girls about my age in a room that, thankfully, looked more like a massage centre and less like a hotel room - it must have been refitted. They were, as usual, very surprised to see a white girl, but I showed them my slip, and they told me to go behind the curtain and take my top and bra off (!!). There were two beds behind the curtain, and I was told to lie down on one of them, so I put my clothes on the other bed - there was no where else to put them. I had seen a shelf stacked with little empty glass jars upside down, so I was beginning to put the pieces together. And indeed, it was confirmed when one of the girls took the jars, started lighting them on fire, and then putting them on my back - they were doing 拔罐: cupping. It's basically a Chinese therapeutic method where jars are out on your body and the air is sucked out of the jar (via pump, or fire beforehand) to pull at your skin.
She didn't talk much, but put the jars on very quickly. In fact, I was amazed by the number of jars she managed to stack on my back (I counted 48); I must have looked like a turtle with a glass shell. After they were all on, sucking at my skin uncomfortably, she put a towel over me and my shell and said to stay like that for 15 minutes. One jar fell off, but other than that the first 5 minutes were a pretty boring time.
5 minutes in, as I have alluded, something happened: there was another knock on the door. The two ladies talked to this woman like an old friend, so I took it she was a regular customer. Anyway, I could hear her lay down on the other bed. One of the girls started talking to her about what she had been eating while massaging (? I couldn't see) her, and literally listing every sort of fruit that exists, and the woman on the bed would reply with if she liked it or not. Apparently, according to the girl, you're not supposed to eat fruit at night. Anyway, the woman started screaming in a way that made me think, in my blinded state, that they were setting fire to her instead of the cups. What I learned when the cups were taken off of me was that they were simply massaging her arms - must have been one hell of a massage. I then deduced, having seen some of the posters in the room, that she was having a weight-loss treatment, where they "break up" the fat on your body. Credible.
When the towel was finally removed off of me, I raised my head, and the weight-loss woman was flabbergasted - first of all, I presume, to see a white girl emerge from the glass shell, and second of all - she said to the girl massaging her: "她要减肥？(She wants to lose weight?)". I presume she thought I was doing the same treatment as her. The girl laughed, and said I was there for back problems.
Anyway, because that woman was now on the other bed, my clothes were no longer there, and I discovered they had been moved to over the curtain in the waiting room area. So there I was, topless, bruised, trying to get my bra on out in the open. It was uncomfortable. But I paid - it cost all of AUD$14 - and left the hotel room, being told not to shower for at least 4 hours. My back was itchy all the way home.
This is what my back looked like afterwards. Apparently the darker the circles, the more "toxins" were present at that point of your body, so I guess my upper back has lots of toxins. Carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders I guess hahaha. I noticed they weren't very dark around my lower back where my problem is, so I don't know what's going on there. It did help a little bit, for a little while, but the seizing up is very much back in action. I've been to a back doctor since, and apparently I have a torn ligament inside the lower right part of my back, which makes sense.
The second half of the day was spent at the Beijing Opera - yes, in Shanghai. The uni gave us free tickets, so Mariana, Nuria, Katya, Viktoria, and I went. We took a Didi because Mariana was still fresh from her operation and couldn't stand up for too long, so I wasn't really paying attention to where we were going. Anyway, we got there around 6, and most of the crowd was old Chinese men and women. We filed into the theatre, and discovered that even though we were a;; seated together in a row, the rows were split in the middle into two different wings, so there was a huge rift between us. It was kind of funny:
The performance was split into two parts. The first, an entree, if you will, was mostly acrobatic: lots of performers flipping and aerialling about. It was very impressive, and whenever something particularly spectacular would happen, the old people in the audience would ejaculate: "好！" ("Good!"), which we found very amusing. Imagine performing and people just yelling "GOOD." at you. Must be reaffirming! There was one particularly enthusiastic man sitting behind us, and some other boys sitting next to them, who must have been other exchange students from SJTU, would play along and shout “好！” every time he did, just as enthusiastically.
This act lasted about half an hour, after which the real deal began. It was an ancient Chinese story, told in ancient lyrical form. (The closest comparison I can think of is Shakespearean language). As such, we had no fucking clue what was going on. Along with the fact that the end notes would be held for a ridiculously long time, during which the old Chinese audience members would gasp "好！" in amazement, I found it almost absurd. I tried really hard to understand, I really did, but even with the subtitles, I had no fucking clue what was going on. Something about Lao Zi and another man fighting philosophically?
It was also really, really long. At one point the lights went on and everyone clapped, and I thought, thank God, it's over, but no - it was just an intermission. We considered leaving at the intermission, but felt guilty and stayed. Every time we were going to leave, we would think, "no, it looks like it's nearly over, we can wait another 10 minutes." This kept happening until the performance actually finished - on a rather inconclusive note, I would say, but I barely understood what was going on, so I might just be stupid.
Relievedly, we walked out the theatre, a different way from which we came, and found ourselves out on the street. I might have been hallucinating, but what did I see to my right, right next to the theatre, if not the very hotel I had been cupped in that afternoon?
We took a Didi back to campus, and shared a very late 11pm dinner together at the trusty 东北人家 on the same street - tomato scrambled eggs (which, apparently, is the national dish of China, because its colours are that of the flag), fried potatoes and beans, and rice.
And then I went home, showered, it being now outside the four-hour window in which I was not allowed to bathe, and slept.
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