"Technique" or "Torture"???

Everyone has a breaking point.....

....but I have not found mine yet when it comes to Chinese Torture (thank god....or gods...).

I mean, what do these things have in common?

1. An ordinary glass cup...

2. A match (or more precisely - matches...)

3. A box of tissues....

4. And a crazy old Chinese man....

Oh, sure, Chinese will call it "Medical Practices," but it is torture nonetheless, and I am very happy to say they did not break me.

I was "tortured" on a whim from Jo's sadistic mind.

You see, since she had a serious car accident when she was 19, her spine has hurt off an on til now and even though she has been to about 100 doctors to help torture her, recently it was acting up again and she decided to try yet another doctor - for the heck of it. I mean, what is one more torture session? She loves it....

Anyway, this doctor - Let's call him Dr. Wang (and for those idiots out there - it is NOT pronounced "W-ay-ng" but "W-ah-ng" Geez!)....anyway, Dr. Wang is reknowned and a bit of a celebrity for curing people with serious back problems.

So Jo went and started to go through the process that I will explain in a moment. After it the blood was wiped off the floor and the carcases sprinkled with lime, Jo mentioned casually to the Doctor (as in Heir Doktor Mengela) that this foreign guy should try it. Now to be honest, I was very interested and curious since while he was performing his 'art', he explained that 9 out of 10 women don't make a peep, while 10 out of 10 men usually scream or bellow in agony.

Well, that made me curious right off, since as I was watching Jo's back twist in 5 ways and fire consume her flesh, she - rightly enough - did not make a peep (even though her face was a hardened grimace for awhile).

Not to be outdone (and being the local celebrity myself - I mean, I am a foreigner who can speak Chinese....), I was surprised, but curious nonetheless.

I do remember saying: "But I don't have a back problem..."

To which all he said was a faint: "We'll see...."

Hmmm...

Ok, have you guessed the "Medical Practice" mentioned above with the pictures? This time, I will give you some choices:

1. Acupressure
2. Acupuncture
3. Acutorture
4. Moxibustion
5. Moxi-w-ah-t?
6. Moxitorture

Did you guess #4? No? If not, you are an idiot.

No, just kidding, Wendy (she is pretty much the only one who reads this page anyway....haha). Yes, actually, it is #4 - Moxibustion, a word I learned when I stepped into Taiwan. Kind of resembles Water Boarding in a more painful kind of way....

(A common Waterboarding Technique)

Ok, ok....in truth, it is weird, but does wonders. Here is how it works (for all you people not up on your torture methods....):

• You take an unwilling subject or a curious idiot foreigner...
• You take off their shirt and have them lay on their stomach (you might have to loosen the cuffs to do this).
• You take a cup, fill it with a tissue, then take a match.
• Light the match.
• Stick the match in the cup, making the tissue catch fire.
• Up-end the cup (with burning tissue) onto the curious idiot foreigner's back.
• This will cause the flame to go out - no air, you see - and the skin under the cup to be sucked up into the cup.
• Yum!
• Do this repeatedly with about 10-15 cups all over the back.
• When you have them all on, start moving them around the back - without lifting them up - in a kind of - guess-where-the-bean-is-under-which-cup type of movement, which - all I can say - is OW!
• Grimace if you are a woman, and scream if you are a man.
• Stay like this for awhile and drift in and out of consciousness....

Now, I am no Jack Bauer, from 24 fame, but I lasted pretty well under duress, even to the point that Dr. Mengela - I mean Wang - said "Hmm, he didn't say anything.....what about THIS...." to which he added on a few more just for good measure to see if I wasn't faking it or something....

This is the result...


hNow, as it happens, I may indeed have a back problem, but I distinctly remember it NOT being there before the 'technique"...however, as I was lying in agony, both Jo and Heir Doktor were making little sounds like "Ohhh" "Ahhhh" and my favorite: "Hmmmm", making it seem like I was in fact due to die or keel over at any moment.

After I was revitalized with a dose of epinephrin (ok, I admit, I watch too much 24...), I groggily came to with them both telling me that I had a Qi problem. I had this since when the "technique" (Torture) is applied, the little circles of burnt flesh should be a healthy light shade of pink, but as I could plainly see (actually I could not since I did not have a mirror), that my shoulders and neck were screwed up.

Just come back 500 more times and he would straighten me right up...I think he said between gaffaws of laughter...

Jo was nodding.

Anyway, a problem in my neck and shoulder I did not know I had started to feel a hell of a lot better. I don't know much about biolo - qi (as the song goes), but it did do something - something more than qualify me as a "woman" in the eyes of Heir Doktor....

So to make a longer than necessary story short, the technique works and Jo is fine now. Amazing stuff.

I am now ready for more kinds of techniques (torture) now that you can easily find in Taiwan.

Jeff & Jo


Ps. This is what Qi looks like in Chinese (if you are interested)