(101 Things About Shanghai) Blind Massage Parlors

I’ve got a fucked up clicky neck, leftover from a fun and debilitating 5-car pile-up I was in back in Istanbul in 2007 with an insane company driver. Even though I couldn’t walk without crying/screaming for a month, the Istanbul medical community declared me unhurt and I was released from hospital the same day. No physio, no chiro, nowt.

Now, three years later, I’m finally getting some very affordable care for my thoroughly messed up skull/neck connection.

For 40rmb for 45 minutes (and up to 80rmb for 90 minutes), you get a thorough acupressure-heavy massage from one of the dozen or so blind massage men. This isn’t oily, naked soft massage. This stuff is brutal and quite intense, done fully clothed under a thin sheet.

When you first lie down and stuff your face through the hole in the padded table, they lay the sheet over you and run their hands up and down your body from skull to toes before they zero in on your problem areas. One guy spent 45 minutes working solely on the area at the base of my skull, where it connects with the spinal column.

You can also get a one hour reflexology foot massage, after a 15 minute foot soak in an herbal bath in a wooden bucket, for about 55rmb.  The fellow who worked on me yesterday knew exactly what was messed up as soon as he set to work on my left foot– somewhere on the outside of my arch was apparently linked to my neck area as it hurt like hell when rubbed and he chided me for not having dealt with my neck issues sooner.