When Sinks Throw-Up

It is gross when people throw-up. It is grosser when moldy old sinks throw-up. Like mine did.

I think it is better that it threw-up via the hole in the floor under the sink rather than via the hole in the sink. I spent over half an hour cleaning this up (which made Tom and I late meeting our friends for dinner that Friday night). The next day Tom was washing the dishes and it started throwing-up again. We had Caroline call the plumber for us. He came to our apartment a few minutes later. The plumber also happens to be the electrician and keeper-of-the-keys. I was in the other room when he arrived and heard him say, "Ahhhh..."

I came out and asked Tom if that was an, "Ahhhh...I have seen this before! We'll have that sucker fixed in a jiffy!" or an "Ahhhh...what the heck happened? This is *bad*." Tom told me it as the second.

The plumber poked around a bit with a piece of hanger and a flashlight he'd brought with him then said he'd be back tomorrow. The next day he showed up with some other guys and a huge machine to unclog the sink. They made a mess of the kitchen then said it was fixed.

Tom started washing the dishes and the sink started throwing up on his slippers again.

They came back again and took out part of the wall in front of the sink. Now it is fixed. Except there is a gapping hole so we can view the dark moldiness under the sink. It's another thing I have learned to pretend I cannot see.

Cow Horn Massage - Gua Sha

Chinese germs are a particularly nasty breed, and my typical hygenic American upbringing did not prepare my immune system to wage war against them. Again, I have a terrible cold. But this is the first time I've had a cold that made me achy and gave me fever. It kept me from going out last weekend and I even cancelled class one day, so I decided I'd try a traditional Chinese remedy. Along with the occassional Aleve Cold & Sinus I've been taking some herbs, which seem to help the cold move along. Besides the herbs though, I decided to try a traditional Chinese massage, gua sha.


This massage is special because they not only massage you, but use a piece of cow horn (traditionally it is cow horn, but it is sometimes plastic, jade, or stone) to scrape your back. My friend Michelle had a bad cold when she got to China and a student of her's had taken her to get it done. She said it helped.


So we showed up at the massage parlor yesterday and they led me upstairs. It is a ladies only massage parlor. I was led into the room that said "Rose" on the door on a gold placard. The room smelled like rose oil and was pink and warm. A woman was laying on one of the four beds getting a type of facial massage. I was asked to take my clothes off, place them in my wooden locker, and lay face down on the bed adjacent to her.


The masseuse giving the facial massage spoke a little bit of English, but mine didn't speak any. She was a little Chinese girl, around my age. She rubbed my back with oil then started massaging my back. She would rub the skin really really fast so my back felt hot, then slow down again. It was very relaxing and lasted about 15 minutes. (During this time they were chatting in Chinese and I caught the word for "fat," after which they asked if I had a baby. That made me feel good.) After the massage she took out a piece of flat, black cow horn that was rounded on one end and straight on the other with a chip out of the middle. She would press down with the edge of the horn and scrape all the way down my back. It didn't really hurt, but when it got to a point where I started thinking, "Ouch, this hurts a little," she would move to a different part of my back. It lasted for about twenty minutes.


The Chinese believe that when a person is ill it is due to stagnant blood that builds up just below the surface of the skin. The stagnant skin holds toxins in it and makes a person sick. By scraping the skin in this way, the stagnant blood is forced to circulate, oxygenate, and become healthy again, thereby making the person healthy. The sicker you are, the more stagnant blood you have. When they scrape your back it moves the blood, and the sicker you are the darker and splotchier your back will look when they scrape it.


As she scraped my back the other masseuse translated, "Your body is *very* unhealthy. You should take care of your body." At the end of the massage they had me look in the mirror. It looked like someone had beaten me. I took this picture more than six hours afterwards.

It isn't as painful as it looks. My back was a little bit tender (and still is today) but I am feeling a lot better. I wouldn't say I'm completely cured, but the massage definitely helped. The difference between Chinese cold medicine and American cold medicine is that the Chinese medicine helps to cure you, while I feel like American medicine only masks the symptoms. I'm interested to see how long it looks like I was attacked.

Chicken Sausage

I don't know if you remember, but on Tom and I's first trip to the grocery we were encouraged to buy some chicken sausage.

I'd just like to say that it is STILL in our refridgerator. We had given a couple away to Haohao, but now he mostly just screams "DAIDOU!" when he sees Tom and slams the door. We have no idea what "daidou" means and neither do our Chinese teachers when we tell them. We'll probably just throw out the rest of it. Too bad for you Haohao.

Number 12

Students at my school have a number for their class. This way the teachers can simply call a number instead of remembering everyone's name. I try to remember my students' names, but with 350 students it is nearly impossible, especially in the classes of 50+. Tom and I often call numbers in our big classes. When you call on a student he or she will stand up and answer the question or stand there silently staring down at their desk.
Last week, Tom asked a question then called on Number 12 to answer. No one stood up. He called Number 12 again, and still no one stood up. He said, "Number 12! You need to stand up!" Then a tiny girl in the front row said, "But I am standing up!"
She is so short he couldn't tell she was standing up.