Higo Blog

The Full Body Abrasion And Other Things Korean

Last week Justin, Nam, and I stopped in Seoul for 2 nights and 1 day before coming back to Japan. We stayed in down town Seoul at the Rex Hotel, and did a lot with the little time that we had. One experience in particular stands out:

For the whole trip, Nam had been waiting to go to Korea to get a massage. It seemed strange to me how obsessed she became, and how focused she was on going. What could be so special about this massage. Well, on our last night, we headed to a place called Minami Esutesaron (I think this translates from Katakana to English into South Este Salon or maybe South East Salon). Right away I knew the place was a bit strange because everyone here spoke good Japanese. Not yet wanting to go back to Japan in any way, I resisted and tried to speak English, but this didn't work. They did the typical double-take, and I had to tell the abridged version of my ancestry once again. So whether I wanted it or not, I had already gone back to Japan by going to this salon in down town Seoul.

We started out by changing into thin cotton robes and entering via a hobbit-sized door into a sauna that had a roof completely covered in amethyst, and ultra-hot air saturated with salt. I was only able to tolerate the heat for about 3 minutes, and when my glasses started to singe my temples, I decided that it was time to move onto the baths.

There were 4 baths: Platinum, Gold, and two others: lets call them (so-so)Silver and (shameful) Bronze just for fun. They seemed to be pretty standard onsen-type baths, but had a sweet aroma and tiles that reflected their themed color through slightly opaque water, lending an expensive ambiance. I stayed in the baths for about 20 minutes and then went to the massage table.

All of the directions were given by a Korean man in Japanese, who was to be the masseuse. I was instructed to completely disrobe and to lay down on my back. Luckily, going to onsens on a regular basis has desensitized me so that I now don't feel uncomfortable being completely naked in front of others in certain contexts. So here I am, bare-assed on a table, sunny side up. The masseuse starts out by throwing a bucket full of warm water over me, and then puts on the glove.

The glove is more like a heavy-duty square mitten. Although white and yellow stripes give it the look of an ordinary kitchen towel, its dense texture resembles that of the green Ajax infused brillo pad that sits beneath your kitchen sink ready to scrub the carbonized food from pots and pans left long neglected on the burner. So the masseuse gets to work. First on the arms. And it is not gentle in any sense of the word, but rather methodical and thorough, and as it grates along my skin it makes a sound not unlike the scrape of a lion's tongue rasping the last bits of meat off of a Thompson's gazelle's femur. And so he continues to cover every convievable inch, working from arms, to the hands, to the chest and thoracic regions, to the feet and up the legs. Finally it reaches the inner thighs, and I wonder, how thorough is this scrub gonna be anyways? and the brillo mitten answers with a kkrrrssssshhhhhhhhh! hitting the nether regions.

Yep, the brillo pad is scraping the kindama (literally golden balls, but more accurately testicles). It was actually not as horrible as it sounds, but it was psychologically unnerving. When this was happening, all I could think was "you could not pay me enough to scrub another man's nuts!" and wondered if this guy initially had the same feeling, or if he was always OK with doing this. Perhaps this is a cultural thing, but I suspect that the Salon has to initially give out big incentives to persuade their trainees to scrape the dead skin from another man's testicular region.

And so my entire body was rid of a whole layer of dead skin. My skin felt raw and looked vibrant and young. It was silky smooth and actually had a glow. It felt alive. That being said, I don't think that I will ever do this again, unless someone drags me along, I spontaneously develop an urge to shed all of my dead skin, or I somehow get a full body itch or something like that. I can scrub my own nuts in the privacy of my home by myself, thank you very much.

We also visited the DMZ in the morning. I didn't feel tense at all and didn't even get to see a North Korean, unless that wink of glass across the distance in that North Korean propaganda village was a sniper drawing a bead on my head. It was cool to learn about the 4 tunnels that the North Koreans tried to dig into South Korea, and to go down the no.3 tunnel. It reminded me of going down into a hidden goblins' lair, and I imagined thousands of orc-like N. Koreans waiting to blow down the concrete plug at the end of the tunnel, ready to charge with their guns a blazin' balls to the wall to subjugate the S. Koreans at any moment.

The skull and bones and other mine warning signs were sort of scary. Right next to the DMZ there was a S. Korean school with these signs around the perimeter, and I wondered what they did when someone kicked the soccer ball over the fence. I imagined a little kid crying, weighing the consequences of abandoning a ball (beat up by other kids) or climbing over the fence and trying to get it (possibly losing a leg). I guess that the kids probably kick the shit out of eachother on a frequent basis. After seeing what happened to little Lee, limping along on one leg and two splintery crutches, there probably isn't much of an internal debate.

The food in Korea rocked. Being in Japan has made my tastebuds very sensative, so the chili-infused food was a little intense. However, I got over this quickly and proceeded to enjoy calbi, bibimba, bulgogi, kimchee, and many other delicious foods. It was in Korea that my full apetite finally returned, and I was happy.

The shopping in Korea was interesting. Walking the streets and the cheap indoor malls was like going to the O.C. Swapmeet- lots of interesting things to look at but nothing that I wanted to spend money on. Well, I sorta wanted to buy a "barbarian-filled donut" but passed on this as well. However, Justin and I had fun haggling down the price on counterfeit goods with a Korean merchant in front of a small crowd of his friends. When he asked if we were Korean, Justin replied "my Mom is Korean", and so he proceeded to give us "Korean rates" and cited the high prices which he charged Japanese customers. Haggling is fun because it is part acting, all about bluffing, and if it is done well, both parties come away feeling like they got more out of the deal than the other party. Its not about saving that extra dollar, but rather its about seeing how much you can push the envelope.

I really enjoy going to countries in Asia and being mistaken for a local. I take this as a complement, that these people immediately see something in me that they share in common. Its a strange feeling to fit in in this way without doing anything at all, and only something that I have become acutely aware of after living over here for a while. This always happens, and yet it never fails to surprise me.

I used to think that I could tell Chinese from Japanese from Koreans from Vietnamese, etc... I can do this, but this is due mostly to social cues such as behavior and clothing rather than physiological ones. Sure, sometimes you can tell a Chinese person, say for example Yao Ming, from a Japanese person, like Gedde Watanabe (Long Duck Dong) pretty easily. But this is the exception rather than the rule. In Korea, people assumed that I was Korean. The two days immediately after I came back from Korea, I was asked 3 times if I was Korean by Japanese people. I can only assume that they could smell the essence of Kimchee coming out of my pores.

So Korea was a cool place to visit, but it was kinda expensive. I would like to spend more time over there and to more deeply delve into the culture and customs of Korea, but our 1 day 2 night trip was just the right duration. It was just too friggin cold this time of year! I will be back one day if only to eat dog, but perhaps this will happen in a different country before I return. It is possible that the meat in those Tiajuana tacos was indeed perro (also possibly rata, el gato, or some other base mammal), but what you can't prove doesn't count.

Posted by Adam at January 13, 2004 01:18 PM | TrackBack