Things We Do When We THINK Nobody is Watching Us

I have recently had a revelation of self. I am incredibly awkward, extraordinarily so and yet this affliction of the membrane appears to manifest itself in the strangest of ways. I find normal things too awkward, like saying hello to someone you know rather than pretending to be a tree (this makes dating in a City like Shanghai an interesting experience). Yet posing questions such as: 'So, what do you think is the most selfish shellfish?' to relative strangers, is no issue for me. This past week I have observed the habits of others in the fashion of a slightly pervy sleuth and am delighted to find that I am not alone in my ridiculous ways! Here follows the top three most random, awkward moments…when strangers think that no one is watching them:

3^rd prize - The Ear Cleaner: Cleaning your ears in public is pretty much a no no; this fellow was particularly resourceful in his methods. No cotton buds to hand? No worries…get your car key in there, son!!

2^nd Prize – The Baby Bogey: We teach our kids ‘Be clean’ but we only see them two hours a week, it really is up to the parents to implement this rule, not encourage the opposite behaviour. Point and case: Grandfather and sprog on the metro – child get his digit dug into old man’s nose and then…eats it!! Old man sits docile, contemplating better days.

1^st Prize – When Two Become One: After sharing a plate of pasta, and feeding each other, a couple (Chinese girl, Western boy) settle back to enjoy the Blue Grass gig. After a couple of minutes of liberated independence, the girl leans over her boyfriend’s shoulders and starts picking the food out of his teeth. The couple continue in this fashion, enjoying the warbling melody of the Blue Grass Project. 

The Massage Chronicles Part One: Sri Lanka

For many, the idea of weekly massages seems an absurd luxury; the kind of opulence that footballer’s wives dripping in yellow gold and sovereigns mention to two-syllable magazines (Hello! Closer! Ok!) “Buuuuut, like, yaaa knaaaow, I’m really like just like an ordinary gurwl really.” In Asia, the land expanse of extremes, a weekly 60 minute massage can become as much a part of your weekly routine, and budget, as the occasionally necessary splurge on Doritos at the Western market; in fact, massages are often the cheaper option.

My first experience of the ‘real’ Asia provided extensive material for the first entry in the Massage Chronicles, a lifelong work to which I am more than dedicated. The date is August 2008, the setting a dusty corner of Kandy, Sri Lanka’s second largest city. Initially, an Ayurvedic massage experience seems like a great idea.

My mum and I are weathered massage veterans, not so much the kind dripping in diamonds, more the bitter, got the shit end of the DNA stick kind, leading to an un-kind kind of posture. To quickly add filler to this paint by numbers of the imagination, the beds have no covers but have recently been disinfected, which makes them rather slippery and provides many an ‘Oh shit’ moment as the rigorous massage almost sends one or the other of us slip sliding across the room. The walls of said room are caked in grime, the windows so dusty that only the most persistent of light beams can penetrate the room’s gloom.

Slip, slide, slip, slide, pound, ‘ouch’, slide, ‘shit’, slip, ‘please don’t massage my boobs’, slide and we are ushered away from each other (four year old separation anxiety revisited) and into a bath filled with dried roses and herbs. The bath tubs remind me of the one from my childhood, which is sweet, except this one is smaller and has a kind of off yellow tinge. In fact, it really looks nothing like the tub of yore, and is instead more of a reminder of being the third in the water after my two brothers had been thoroughly scrubbed. I sit in the bath tub, naked as my name day, and concentrate on not swallowing any of the water that the woman insists on pouring over my head, ‘relaxing, madam.’ Up and out, a quick rub down (I am not permitted to partake in this most private of human functions), several perplexed glances at my only ally (a rusted mirror hanging behind the woman’s head) and onto the wax treatment.

I don’t wish to bore you too much with the details of this. Simply imagine two beds, a kind of pendulum machine, a massive candle and some wax. Insert two victims and set the wax a drippin’. Those who know me know that I struggle to sit through a whole episode of my favourite TV show; my house mate calls it ADHD, I call it jumping beans of the spirit. After about ten minutes of having wax dripped over my forehead, along with the constant worry of ‘how bloody hot is this wax like to get?’ I sit up, thank the perplexed woman and trot over to the wooden coffin for the final in the Ayurvedic torture series. By this point I really have no idea where my mum is and my anxiety is rising.

Inside the wooden box, it is hot. I am lying on a kind of wooden grate heated from below by a genuine, state of the bloody art fire. It is hot. Everything but my noggin is entrapped in the wooden box and it is hot. I tell myself to relax, chastise myself for being such a tense, moody cow, think that my boyfriend may just have a point. It is hot. I last ten minutes, it feels like fifty. I shout for someone to come and open my coffin, only slightly concerned about my naked modesty as I am revealed, half cindered beneath the heavy lid. Upon later inspection, I have four perfect square third degree burns where my bum meat (be kind) has nestled nicely between the wooden slats, too close to the fire.

There are lessons in this experience, although, four years later, I have not learnt from them…China promises to provide many an interesting, potentially dangerous massage experience…