I had just finished work for my week of celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year. I figured I would start the celebration by going and getting a massage at a local massage place in the plaza I live in.
Now, I’m getting this massage in China, and the place I am going to is labeled a Thai massage place, and it’s in a plaza. I know you might be thinking, is this a sketchy red-light massage place with happy endings? No, it’s not. It’s in a shopping plaza near an Adidas store and Godiva Chocolateries. It’s not in a shady alleyway.
That being said, it is very different from the massage places you know in the US. I also have never had another massage like this before. So I apologize if anything after this makes you uncomfortable. Except not really sorry.
Just a month before, I signed up for a Thai massage and had the most interesting experience with massages ever. I was dressed in a light canvas shorts and shirt pajama set while a woman massaged my muscles with her feet. It looks like the picture below.
This place was legit. This was also my first full-body and unclothed massage in China, so I cannot speak for other places in China that do massages and whatever their techniques are.
The Thai Massage Place
I show up to the place and ask if they are available to fit me in for a full body massage. The entryway is dark brown with golden lights and trickling water sounds to help you feel relaxed immediately upon entry.
I sit down on a firm bench and take off my boots while the lady at the front desk presents me with a pair of slippers. I hear the click from the hot water kettle and a faint sound of bubbling water she had just boiled. She filled a carafe with the clear liquid to make me a fresh batch of chrysanthemum tea.
We walk up the stairs together and she takes me to the room I would be getting my massage in. We enter the room and there are two massage tables still decorated with pillows and fanned out material. The towels were still folded at the foot of the table. There was a giant walk-in shower decorated in dark wood. The attendant tells me in Chinese to put on the robe and then call the massage therapist when I was ready.
I look at the table, unmade for a massage and think, “So, she comes in… but she needs to make the table, so does she come in, make the table, and then leave so I can get under the sheet?”
Nonetheless, I get undressed and put the very small robe over my body. My butt is so big compared to the average woman in China, I can feel my cheeks beginning from beneath the robe.
Getting a Full Body Massage in China
I ring the call button. A few minutes later, I hear a shuffling of slippers on the way to the room. A very short woman enters and speaks to me in Chinese. She tells me to take off my robe. For a moment, I hesitate. Honestly, I’m not super confident with my body at this time, so I wasn’t sure how comfortable I was undressing in front of this woman. I had to think quickly about why we are taught to feel shame over our bodies in front of other women.
I look at the still untouched massage table. Usually, you get under the blanket and the therapist enters once you are safe and not revealing anything other than your back. Eventually, I think, screw it. I disrobe in front of this woman I don’t know.
I’m standing there, very naked, and she tries to get me to put on these disposable panties I know aren’t going to fit. I tell her they are too small and she tells me my own underwear should be ok. I lay down on the table face first and super naked.
She covers my body, barely, with a small sheet. I know my hips are still poking out of the side of the blanket. She purposely hangs my arms over the side of the table. Then she covers my feet with a smaller sheet. She starts massaging my feet with the sheet on top. Then she gets on the table and starts massage my legs, butt, back, and neck. Never had a person actually get on the table before.
“I really hope she doesn’t massage me with this sheet on my back the whole time,” I thought. I know human contact, and touching strangers, in general, isn’t practiced in China. I figured for the purpose of a massage in China, it has to be different?
One thing you should know about when it comes to getting naked in front of the same sex in China is that to them, it’s completely normal and they don’t feel ashamed of their bodies, let alone care about yours. I know we make a big deal in some female locker rooms about other women looking at our butts, vaginas, and breasts. We compare ourselves to the woman getting undressed next to us. But here, it’s normal. No one even bats an eye and yet, Chinese women are incredibly modest.
Eventually, the massage therapist uncovers my back and puts the end of the sheet at the middle of my butt. Then she starts the massage working from the top of my buttocks and up my back. I’m all jacked up from sitting at a desk a lot and looking down at a computer. She got all the blocks, needless to say.
Paying Attention to Breast Health
She does an excellent job in the first 45 minutes massaging the back part of my body. She covers literally every inch making sure to get every muscle. Then comes the front part. She asks me to roll over onto my back and starts the massage at the upper part of my body.
Raising my arm up above my head and uncovering one side of my chest. She massages my armpit and my breast. Now, this is definitely foreign to me because we just don’t do this in the US when we get a massage. Yet, I wasn’t really that uncomfortable, but a part of me was unsure still.
As she is massaging, I had to remind myself that I’m getting a massage in China, a country that thinks of naked bodies differently than Americans do. Where this kind of thing might be considered sexual harassment, or something to that effect, this woman was just doing her job as a massage professional. And if you’re sitting at home wondering if that part was arousing, no, it was not. But if you would like to know about the health benefits of breast massages, you can go here.
She did the other side and I felt balanced. I didn’t feel ashamed, but rather cared for, for lack of better words. I instead thought about how often breasts are sexualized in American culture. Everyone, including myself, has been indoctrinated to sexualize breasts. At that moment, I had to think of my body differently and the way we view the body image back home. You can still be modest and take care of yourself.
Eventually, she covers my breasts with the thin sheet and moves to my stomach region of my body. When she sees my belly button ring, she pokes at it, thinking it’s something that may have accidentally gotten stuck to my body. I laugh, and she laughs too. It’s not common to see belly button rings, I guess.
She starts massaging my stomach and then asks me, “Are you Russian?” I get asked this all the time in China. Because of my European descent, I look very Russian in their eyes. I tell her, no, but everyone thinks I am. I tell her I’m American and she thinks for a moment.
“Most Americans have such tan skin, but your skin is so white.” She says. I don’t know how true that is, but then I think of the last time I laid down in a tanning bed or went to the beach. It’s been a while.
After the massage was over, she had me sit up. She got on the table with me and stretched out my body using her feet and arms. So that was my experience with this massage place, that I will definitely be visiting each month. A few days later, I can still feel where she rubbed out some of my heaviest blocks.
Let’s Change How We Think of Our Naked Bodies
It takes getting a massage in China, to get me thinking, we don’t take care of those parts of ourselves like we should because we are taught to be ashamed of our body like it’s some easy thing we can get rid of to please others. We make something we can’t escape a taboo thing. I think by doing that, we make understanding the importance of keeping those parts of our body healthy a thing to be ashamed of.
We need to stop being ashamed of our bodies and stop making them out to be sexual tools and objects for other’s pleasure above our own self-worth and self-love.
I felt so awesome after this massage and ready to tackle the Chinese New Year as a new me, with a new perspective. Take care of your body everyone! Be kind to yourselves this year and love who you are, because there’s no guarantee someone else will.
Watch the Video!
Watch a video on Thai massage techniques below. Or see other posts on massage adventures by going here.
