Comparative Analysis of Shanghai Rub Downs

I’ve had two massages while here in Shanghai. They were very different in every way except for this.

They were cheap. ($24 and $12) and they both made me sick! I get the distinct impression that massages here are a therapy to remove “toxins.” And remove they did.

Massage #1 was a typical Chinese massage- it was dry. You wear pajamas and the girl massages you through those and focuses on a body part at a time. I liked, but didn’t love it.

Afterwards, I took a large nap and woke up not well. I was freezing cold for a couple of hours, with a determined feeling of puking. There was no puking, but sufficient to say there are other methods of toxin removal. After a couple of hours, I felt super hot, and then it just…went away.

Not to learn lessons the first time, yesterday I headed to a different place – recommended by co-workers. They said it was amazing, and there definitely was oil. I figured it’d be more like the amazing relaxing massage I got the first time I came here.

Wrong. The girl twisted my body and joints in directions that weren’t comfortable. She moved so hard and fast up and down my back, you could hear the muscles moving under her hands. And. It. Hurt.

This massage ended with a two drinks. The first was cold, green and cloudy, and had a good amount of solid-ish stuff in the bottom. It was too thick to be tea. It may have been some fermented bean drink? I didn’t like it. The second one was also cold. It had a familiar taste, though I wouldn’t call it tea like. It lacked leaves, which is typical in Chinese tea, so I don’t know what it was.

Friends accomplished in Eastern medicine – any ideas on either of them?

I loaded up on water after massage 2 to avoid another bout of sickness. My body was super achy, and my neck just hurt. I felt odd, but not sick, and I was super excited about our dinner plans at the “unmissable” Japanese restaurant. It was amazing. I can’t even begin to describe the modern concrete space.

Just after I finished eating (about 3 hours after the massage), I felt suddenly and strongly nauseas. I left the guys with the bill and hopped in a cab. I prayed for a swift return to the hotel. This time, with a belly full of food, I did puke (nasty), and there was those other affects as well. After a couple of hours, I felt better, and passed out.

Bottom line – Austin-based massage therapist/excellent friend Liz is far better!

Unrelenting

Today, after melting under the oppressive Shanghai heat, I went to the nearby mall to go shopping. There was a small Buddha statue outside the entrance of this tower of commerce.

That juxtaposition is quintessentially Shanghai. It’s my third time here, so I am not struck with the wondrous amazement of the lights, the ridiculous skyscrapers, the fashionable restaurants, and the unapologetic consumerism. But I am still a student of this city’s vastness, of its unrelenting crowds, noise and growth.

It is, frankly, exhausting. Today, I left my hotel filled with fresh energy to explore on my own. I wanted to crawl through every corner of the French Concession, a pretty-tree lined section of French architecture. In walking shoes and a cute sun dress, I was ready to adventure.

I made it to a famous local dumpling stall where I handed the girl slightly more than 50 cents in exchange for 4 delicious pork dumplings. I looked for, but failed to find, a good sized Antique and Bird Market. I walked about 2 miles into the northern edge of the French Quarter.

I stopped in a couple of clothing shops housing the cute dresses that every woman I pass here wears.

I left the hotel excited to explore dumplings, clothing and art shops, but in the end, I only managed the dumplings.

Two hours after I left the hotel, I was sick from the heat. I had large sweat stains mid-torso on my dress. My hair was sticking to my face. Even my necklace felt sweaty.

So I hailed a cab and took another white-knuckled, death-defying (or at least accident-defying) cab ride across town to guzzle water and lay naked in my hotel room’s air-conditioning.

Once I recovered, and showered, I headed to the massive 7-story “Brand Name Mall” around the corner in search of a sundress. But even in air-conditioning, the crowds and pushy saleswomen are overwhelming.

I will likely leave Shanghai without a new dress, though by the looks of it, this economy doesn’t need my money.

I will leave here full of new, more subtle Shanghai experiences – a traditional Chinese massage, a teahouse, a mid-city temple surrounded by skyscrapers, a geographic familiarity with this city, an opportunity to have favorite as well as some try new foods.

Sadly, I know no more words in Mandarin than I knew last time. I just can’t keep them in my head. And my food adventures still firmly stop far short of innards and cartilage.

(Pics are on Flickr... I think. I was able to upload them, but I can't see them. Hopefully you can)

Buried

Until this week, I haven’t been doing much adventuring this summer- at least not with passports and plane tickets. Instead I’ve been whiling away my time with some really fantastic books - the kind that you dive into like a new city to explore.

• The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Diodon - Brutally sad and honest, with an beautiful precision of language. It’s the primer on what your mind will do when you lose your life partner. Read it now. Or if too sad to contemplate for now, remember it for when it might be a more useful choice. And best not to fool yourself into thinking you won’t need to be reading this.
  

• Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami - This is only my second Murakami book. There are talking cats, ghosts, and characters so vulnerable you want to wrap them up in bubble wrap. I enjoyed this story far more than Wind Up Bird Chronicles. I will now read every book Murakami has written

• Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver – Well written, precise yet visual language that makes me smitten with a writer crush. A la Sliding Doors, this story follows both paths of love and infidelity– the one of cheating and the one of not. So engaging I read over 200 pages in one sitting on my flight over to Shanghai.
  

rattle

I am in Shanghai. Yesterday, I had fried snake at lunch. It was delicious!