Hmm…How About That?! Seeing Hands Massage
In Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), we had heard about the “Seeing Hands Massage” clinic from our guidebook. It was described as having ‘muscle melting’ massages from trained masseuses who were visually impaired. Now, I should say that I do not like the idea of just any old Joe touching me. I am not a touchy feely type person, and it takes a meaningful relationship for me to give and receive hugs. While I was apprehensive at first, I put my idiotic self-reservations aside in order to hopefully enjoy this unique experience.
The massage began with rhythmic slapping along my back and various limbs. Front and back. While I was amused by what essentially felt like an intense drum beat being laid out across my body, I patiently waited for my sore muscles to be pressed and rubbed by the skilled hands at work. When the chopping was finished, the masseuse moved onto my head, and began rubbing my head in a vigorous and slightly painful motion. I kept telling myself that he was just prepping the tissues for “the real work to begin,” but as he kept rubbing and rubbing my scalp, it started to chaff and burn. As some of you well know, my hair isn’t exactly as thick as it once was, and with all this chaffing and rubbing I was beginning to worry about the hair I had left. I’m sure if the man could see, he would have seen half of my hair on the massage table.
All of sudden the head rub stopped for a split second, and then smack smack smack smack!!! The man slapped my forehead with 4 swift strikes before returning to rubbing my chaffed and now very bald head. 3 minutes later… smack smack smack smack! He hit my forehead again. This process repeated for another 10 minutes and then he declared, “finished!”
Walking from the room, I found Arienne in the hallway and asked her how her massage went. She told me, “I’m sure yours was better than mine!” After comparing experiences, which were appallingly quite similar, Arienne and I starred at each other in complete bewilderment and mutually declared, “hmm… how about that!?