A Korean Massage

This past week I was suffering from some pretty bad neck pain. Between my long stressful work hours, boxing as my exercise choice, and an extremely hard bed, my neck and my back were in complete knots. It was so bad that I couldn't turn my head to the left and the pain was shooting into my head giving me even more pain through headaches. When it started to effect my sleep I realized that enough was enough. I got the name of a Korean massage place that a friend of mine went to and decided to bite the bullet and just pay for the relief. The at home remedies were not helping any longer. I needed a professional.

When I got there I chose a 70 minute aloe vera massage. I soon was guided into the changing room by a sweet young man that couldn't have been more than 20 years old. He pointed to the change of clothes and said "brazeerie off" and pointed to his chest area. I smiled, laughed a little bit and he closed the door. I turned around to find this:

There was a bright pink ensemble for me to change into consisting of a velcro shirt (the velcro went down my back) and baggie shorts. I thought "of course they will unvelcro it as they massage me. They just want to give me a comfortable change of clothes. I guess I will take them off when I get to the room." I put on the outfit, laughing at the fact these were the only shorts I can fit into in Korea, and took a picture of my new look:

But then I had a moment of panic. If I am being told to change into an outfit, and he didn't give me instructions on my bottom half, what is the right protocol here? In the States and in other parts of Asia you basically can do whatever you want in regards to getting completely naked, but Korea is a little funny about this. Here if you show your shoulders you are offending someone but then again super short skirts are OK. I never quite know what is offensive here, and I became very worried I was going to offend my massage therapist! I must have gone back and forth in my mind of what to do for 5 minutes and then I finally saw this sign:

I sighed, laughed, and became much more relaxed knowing I wasn't offending anyone. I was escorted out of the locker room to a foot bath area and given slippers. I soaked my feet for about 10 minutes, surrounded by Koreans on their phones and chatting it up about life. I kept thinking "aren't you trying to relax here, why are you on your phones?" But then again maybe its normal for them to be at a massage place at 9pm at night after a ten hour work day. For me, this seems insane, but I was in pain and needed a professionals help to work out the knots on my neck. Soon enough the sweet 20 year old man came back, dried my feet, then gave me my slippers before escorting me to my room. I later realized that the foot bath was not a means for relaxation but instead it was purely for cleaning purposes. No way is anyone going to massage feet here unless they know they are perfectly clean. Korea is very particular about feet and this can sometimes get annoying with all the slipper changes and rules surrounding footwear, but this actually made a lot of sense. Who knows where my feet have been? Its a good thing they cleaned them!

I looked at him when we got to the massage room and pointed to my neck and said "Very ouch!" He looked concerned and said "OK, very strong." I think he was saying he is strong and will work it out. I laid down on the massage table and was surprised when my velcro outfit stayed on me. He began massaging me through my pink ensemble, by no means ever touching my skin. I started to laugh a little inside my hole on the table where my face was because I couldn't understand why he wouldn't massage me with lotion or oil like every other massage I have ever had. He worked his little heart out though, putting his full 100 pound body into my massage in efforts to undo my knots through the pink shirt. At one point he pointed to a huge knot on my neck and said "Wowugh!"

After quite some time on my neck I was surprised to find him work so hard on my butt. To be quite honest, it made no sense to me that a massage in Korea consists of not being allowed to touch the skin under my pink velcro shirt, but kneading into my butt is somehow acceptable. All I could do was smile to myself at the contradiction of it all, and pray that he was somehow doing something I didn't understand that would take away my pain. I convinced myself he had magical massage powers that were going to help me regardless of how ridiculous they seemed. Finally the good part started and the friction rubbing through the shirt ended. The aloe vera portion must have allowed him to rub the oil onto my back and this was when he really worked out my knots. At one point I moved my arm to get more comfortable and he said "Ouchy?" and I smiled and said 'no.' He soon was putting his body in all different positions to be able to move my arms in equally odd places that ended up popping my back and bringing great relief. He jumped on the table a few times to put his body weight into the massage, and even 'tae known do chopped me' quite a bit. Each time something like this would happen a huge smile would come across my face at the differences between this massage and any other one I have received. Whatever his techniques, they worked and I left a whole new woman.

I told him he was an excellent massage therapist and wrote him a good report. He literally put every ounce of energy he had into taking my pain away and he was very successful. But I have to say, it was the funniest massage I have ever gotten.