The Best Part of China-Hands Down (NSFW)

The best part of being in Beijing for the past 2 months has hands down been my weekly fire cupping and gua sha visits. Basically, they take these suction glass things, put alcohol inside of them and light it on fire. Then they cup it to your skin and leaves you with these unsightly marks. It relieves stress just like a shiatsu massage. The only con is that those marks are left on your back for about a week so you look like a human Dalmatian. I've always wanted to get fire cupping done as a kid, but my mom would never let me cause she said I would get taken away by child service's for abuse.

[Click only if you aren't easily grossed out.]

After getting the fire cupping, I ask to get gua sha, which literally means "to scrape away the disease." Gua Sha uses repeated strokes using a Chinese soup spoon or animal bones. This brings the blood to the surface and releases all the "bad stuff/disease" that is inside you body by opening your pores and bringing it to the surface. Just like with fire cupping, you are left with marks depending on how unhealthy you are. You can come out blue, black, pink, or red. It kind of looks wolverine slashed your back. You feel the relief right away though! Gua Sha can be used to treat heat stroke, colds, asthma, headaches, food poisoning, etc. So basically everything! You must try!

So since I've been going to class with my "abuse" marks all my classmates have been asking me what the hell was wrong with me. I actually ended up taking 5 foreigners with me and they have been converted to fire cupping and gua sha. I should get paid for advertising for them. So funny seeing white people with a bunch of fire cupping marks on them!

So now that I've conquered fire cupping and gua sha every week for the past 2 months, what's next on my list?

Blood letting/Wet Cupping. So they're suppose to make a small incision in your skin before they do the fire cupping on top of that. By doing that, the pressure difference extracts the "bad" blood aka disease from your skin and body!

Since I'm leaving in a week, I'll definitely be going tomorrow once last time!

Happy Eatings? Ha!