拔罐 Ba Guanr

Literally translates to pulling up the cup. Whatever that means, right? On Monday after work my lower middle back was killing me from sitting so long (10 hours!) in an office chair. It wasn't extreme pain, but painful enough that I could no longer sit, standing was uncomfortable, as was laying down, etc. So the bf gave me a bad massage then said we should for his mom to give me ba guanr. So what it that exactly? Well you have probably heard of Chinese cupping, right? Glass cups, heated up, the suctioned onto a persons back. Its supposed to pull all of the bad stuff, the heat out of your body and leaves a two nice rows of dark perfectly circular palm sizes bruises on your back.

I especially need cupping because I 上火-have fiery blood (that the best I can think of right now for a translation, but its sucks). Lots of heat inside me. It makes sense to me, because I get hot and sweat especially, and am prone to breakouts. Also, I've heard people say that people who 上火attract mosquitos. That absolutely describes me. In a word, I'm starting to buy into Chinese medicine.
Zhu's mom is all about Chinese medicine (as I mentioned earlier with all the things that she makes Zhu drink). Chinese medicine 中药 uses food and drink as primary cures, and massage, pressure points, and cupping! But she wasn't willing to do 拔罐儿 for me, so we went to the neighborhood beauty salon.

I got a massage and cupping for 60快，11 bucks. Per usual, the lady was really surprised I spoke Chinese. The cupping. It was a little scary because by that time Zhu had left for home (the massage took forever), and the lady said it might hurt a little. Zhu said only hurt if you moved, so I was trying really had to stay still, but that became difficult because as soon as the cups were suctioned onto my back she started giving me a very vigorous leg massage. Putting them on hurt. She did a very dr. thing, which was telling me she only had two more to go then added four....tricky, but too bad I can count. As soon as they latch ontoyour back you can feel the skin being sucked up....
After 15 minutes she took them off and gave me a mirror to check out my new bruises. Big puffy purple bruises full of all my hot blood that got sucked up and away from me. I was instructed not to take a cold shower (torture, not taking cold showers in BJ heat right now) or eat cold food, as that would push the heat back down.

Now, because its hot, all of the clothes I want to be wearing reveal some part of my back, and thus my new marks. Which is fine, normal even in China. I see middle aged guys all the time waltzing around with their shirts off, parading their ba guanr battle wounds. But the problem is, as much as I try to deny it, I look foreign. So people see me, assume I don't understand Chinese and proceed to talk about me openly inches away. Particulary in elevators at work or in the subway on the way to work. Ears burning? Oh, that is so accurate. The very last time it happened I decided to pull my " I can't understand what you are saying about me and I don't think its very funny" peak over the shoulder look at these two 20 something guys. The result was, as usual in response to that look, "Oh man, she understands? Woah!" But then, an adjective that always gets used ingenuinely to my face and never behind my back was uttered: "厉害“。 (li hai, formidable, badass, awesome)