Friday, June 03, 2005
Tourists: They're Made of Meat
So we're staying with my incredibly generous (and wealthy) cousin, who has, among other things, made each of us the gift of an hour-long massage at the private club he and his family belong to. So this morning I went in to experience my first ever professional massage. A very pretty Indian woman showed me to the changing room and gave me a locker key. "Put on the robe," she said, "and the sleepers." Sleepers? Oh, slippers. "And the paper bahntee." Bahntee? I thought, while simply nodding outwardly. What the hell is a bahntee? Some kind of hairnet? Wrapped snugly in the robe, I unrolled the little paper package.
Ohhhhh. Panty. The word is panty.
Oh, this'll be fun.
I do not have the kind of body one would write home about, and was raised with a pretty healthy sense of shame about it. I'm not morbidly obese or anything, but I am flabby, pale, and have unsightly hair in all the usual places. I followed my masseuse into the darkened spa room, horribly, horribly aware of the fact that I was nearly a foot taller than her and possibly double her weight. Suddenly all of my bulk, usually useful for looming over students and small children, was more horribly embarassing than the everyday shame of looking like a land whale when wearing shorts.
"I'm really a good person," I wanted to say to her. "I know I have the regulation white-trash tattoo, but I belong to a really specialized kind of white trash known as liberal academia." I had this great need for her to see me saving a puppy from a burning house or helping a little old lady ford a bustling Singaporean street. "I know my body is disgusting," my eyes pleaded with her dumbly, "but my heart is pure." (Quiet, you. If I can't lie about my body, I can at least lie about my morals.) I could just imagine what the conversation would be like afterwards in the back room at the spa:
"How was your last appointment, Wendy?"
"Oh, flabby, pale, with unsightly hair in all the usual places. Regulation white-trash tattoo."
The massage itself felt great, physically. Though fingers were thrust -hard - into places that not many have dared to tread. The shame, however, was horrific. You lie facedown on the table, see, and there's a little space for your face to peek through and you stare at the floor - where they've put a sunflower in a bowl for you to contemplate. I ignored the sunflower in favor of obsessing over my pudginess and the etiquette of the massage. About five minutes into it, she asked, "S'okay?" to which I responded "Yes, thank you!" This sounded incredibly stupid and I began worrying about whether I should keep up some sort of running commentary during the massage to let her know she was doing a great job. I determined finally that this would sound sort of weird and sexual ("Ohh, yeah. Yeah, right there.") and that if I started suddenly doing so after ten minutes of near-total silence, she would think I was having some sort of seizure. So the two of us remained in grim silence, interrupted only by her comment as she reached my shoulders: "Too much computer."
How'd she know that? Maybe my shoulders were all tense from playing too much tennis or - oh, wait, that's right. She's just seen all of my flabby white ass in its paper panty.
By the end of the massage, I'd mentally composed a tiny essay that I did not relate. It contained such rich information as the fact that the massage was a gift and she honestly probably made more money than me and this was my first massage and I was fully aware of the implications of colonial history and the problems of occidental vs oriental beauty and I was a good person.
"Thanks very much," I simpered. Definitely a simper.
"You come back," she beamed.
Ha ha ha ha ha no. I'm so glistening with massage oil I feel like the entire Rambo series and my head smells like peppermint. Okay, the peppermint-head thing isn't so bad and my back feels awesome, but no. Thank you for letting me in on your mad oriental massage skills, Wendy.
Ohhhhh. Panty. The word is panty.
Oh, this'll be fun.
I do not have the kind of body one would write home about, and was raised with a pretty healthy sense of shame about it. I'm not morbidly obese or anything, but I am flabby, pale, and have unsightly hair in all the usual places. I followed my masseuse into the darkened spa room, horribly, horribly aware of the fact that I was nearly a foot taller than her and possibly double her weight. Suddenly all of my bulk, usually useful for looming over students and small children, was more horribly embarassing than the everyday shame of looking like a land whale when wearing shorts.
"I'm really a good person," I wanted to say to her. "I know I have the regulation white-trash tattoo, but I belong to a really specialized kind of white trash known as liberal academia." I had this great need for her to see me saving a puppy from a burning house or helping a little old lady ford a bustling Singaporean street. "I know my body is disgusting," my eyes pleaded with her dumbly, "but my heart is pure." (Quiet, you. If I can't lie about my body, I can at least lie about my morals.) I could just imagine what the conversation would be like afterwards in the back room at the spa:
"How was your last appointment, Wendy?"
"Oh, flabby, pale, with unsightly hair in all the usual places. Regulation white-trash tattoo."
The massage itself felt great, physically. Though fingers were thrust -hard - into places that not many have dared to tread. The shame, however, was horrific. You lie facedown on the table, see, and there's a little space for your face to peek through and you stare at the floor - where they've put a sunflower in a bowl for you to contemplate. I ignored the sunflower in favor of obsessing over my pudginess and the etiquette of the massage. About five minutes into it, she asked, "S'okay?" to which I responded "Yes, thank you!" This sounded incredibly stupid and I began worrying about whether I should keep up some sort of running commentary during the massage to let her know she was doing a great job. I determined finally that this would sound sort of weird and sexual ("Ohh, yeah. Yeah, right there.") and that if I started suddenly doing so after ten minutes of near-total silence, she would think I was having some sort of seizure. So the two of us remained in grim silence, interrupted only by her comment as she reached my shoulders: "Too much computer."
How'd she know that? Maybe my shoulders were all tense from playing too much tennis or - oh, wait, that's right. She's just seen all of my flabby white ass in its paper panty.
By the end of the massage, I'd mentally composed a tiny essay that I did not relate. It contained such rich information as the fact that the massage was a gift and she honestly probably made more money than me and this was my first massage and I was fully aware of the implications of colonial history and the problems of occidental vs oriental beauty and I was a good person.
"Thanks very much," I simpered. Definitely a simper.
"You come back," she beamed.
Ha ha ha ha ha no. I'm so glistening with massage oil I feel like the entire Rambo series and my head smells like peppermint. Okay, the peppermint-head thing isn't so bad and my back feels awesome, but no. Thank you for letting me in on your mad oriental massage skills, Wendy.
# posted by FriendlyInstructor @ 3:29 AM 
