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…
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