Health and Beauty

Yesterday my class was so quiet, I feared I'd never engage them in the days activities. If I complained of this to Canadian teachers used to motley crews of misbehaving students, the response would be along the lines of, "Wah, wah. Let me call you a wambulance!" Well, it appears true that the universe always seeks balance, because on a rambuctiousness scale of one to 10, they're at 11. They keep me on my toes for the entire three hours, and that's a good thing because I'm feeling rather off the mark. The Tigers may have lost the game last night, but they won the battle with my back and neck. I decide that today is the day to see the accupuncturist in Hu Moon.

But first, Rob and I have lunch, which includes chewy vegetable pancakes. I tried to make these at home, unsuccessfully. I thought they were supposed to be thin and crispy, with only a few bits of vegetables. In fact, they're as thick as regular pancakes, and packed with lots of vegetables. They could be a meal in themselves, but here, they're just a little side dish.

In the afternoon we walk to the other side of campus to visit the Corea (French spelling) Beauty Museum. The owner greets us at the door and then takes us on a personal tour. It's an enchanting place filled with various replicas and originals of hair implements and accessories from the last several hundred years. Downstairs, there is a functioning, modern hair salon. Such an innovative concept and layout! At the end of our tour, we are presented with a lovely large paperback coffee table book. At no time are we asked for payment. We leave, mystified, and once again, touched by the generosity of the Koreans we've encountered.

En route to the apartment, we stop at the Sang Dae Vero coffee shop for an Americano. As usual, the servers are confused by my request for uyoo (milk) believing that must mean I want a latte. The girls actually laugh as one explains this seemingly benign, but to them, bizarre order. We enjoy the coffee with a mini angel food cake across the street at Tous Les Jours. Like a three year old, I need to visit the washroom in each place we visit, and this one is another experience. It's a unisex facility located down the narrow side alley between this store and another. One wonders how they cope in winter. Even though it only goes down to minus 6, there must be some rather chilly bottoms.

At this point, I realize that my back and neck pain is beyond the point of ignoring. It's off to Neulsiwon Korean Medicine Clinic in Hu Moon. There's some minor confusion over medical coverage and pricing, but a quick call to our able assistant Ryan straightens things out; we don't have Korean insurance, so we'll have to pay 20,000 won instead of 7,000. No problem! At this point, I'd re-mortgage our home to alleviate the pain.

Of course, I need to check out this bathroom, and it has the new-fangled fourteen button toilet. I've still not figured out what each button is used for, but I do know that one is for the bidet, and another is a dryer. Oh, and it flushes with a retro handle at the back. The bathroom could be featured in Better Homes and Gardens, with the expensive tiles, bowl on mantle sink, and assortment of chi chi toiletry items.

The process begins when I'm directed into a doctor's office. He assesses me by pressing on my finger tips. When he reaches the ring finger on my left hand, I let out a yelp as it causes a sharp pain in my lower left backside. He charts my maladies, including that I'm sweating, and then a young woman sends me to change into pyjamas. When I emerge, I look like Elvis during his Vegas years. My pants are so tight that I don't dare sit.

I'm led into a therapy room that is divided into private areas by curtains. Incense burns, and the ping-ping sounds of ancient Korean classical music blanket the room in calm. I have no idea how many two inch pins are inserted into my wrists, ankles, and feet, because I don't even feel them go in. I'm told to relax, and then I'm alone.

My right knee begins to pulse dramatically, and then feels like it's opening up, and negative energy is flowing out. I'm not speaking in ethereal terms; it's a very real sensation. The entire left side of my head seems to have split apart, and it too is gushing white hot energy. I try to centre myself, for this is an unsettling sensation. At once point, I feel so panicky that I have to fight the urge to jump up off the table and run, like a giant pinpricked voodoo doll. I truly understand the concept of the mind-body-soul connection, and can attest to how we physically hold in our pain, no matter the type, because only when it's realised do I realize how tightly I grasp it.

Around about the time I bring myself back to earth, an assistant comes to pluck out the pins. She tells me to take off my shirt and flip onto my stomach. The next thing I know, a man is attaching a line of suction cups from my shoulder to my bottom. Then he turns on the machine. If I weren't absolutely certain of the medical impossiblity, I would wonder if my organs might be sucked out, such is the force of this device. Later, I notice small Dad's oatmeal cookie sized purplish-blue hickies on my back. I really must remember to wear my hair down, lest someone think I've been up to something untoward.

By now somewhat disoriented, I am sent up a Himalayan steep flight of stairs for more treatments. (I find the idea of several flights of stairs at a pain clinic outrageously amusing, but this is the norm in Gwangju. One rarely sees ramps or elevators. I wonder how the physically challenged manage?) In the upper clinic, I'm soon face down on another table with a twist of mechanical eels on my shoulder. This device doesn't only give a mini shock treatment, it also gives one the feeling of big centipedes marching artfully as it massages the injured area.

Already disoriented and without my glasses, I manage to give a real floor show getting onto and off of this table by banging my head into the metal overhead light that gongs and reverberates in spectacular fashion. The assistants giggle, then use their electronic translators to ask me, "Are you okay?" Once finished, I'm led to another table where I'm strapped into thigh high inflatable space boots. The young lady, who seems to find my antics incredibly amusing, struggles to zip up these marvels of science that are designed to fit Korean legs with thighs the size of my calves. The space boots feel much like the bands doctors use to determine blood pressure, as they inflate and deflate with a force that leaves me with some bruising. Korean massage is not for the faint hearted.

Just when I think I'm finished, I'm sent to yet another table for a back, neck, and shoulder massage. A young man pummels me as if cleaning clothes on a washboard at the riverbank. He pulls my arms so hard, I may leave here looking like a monkey, with hands by my knees. Each time I grunt, cough, or burst out laughing, he apologizes, but I assure him it's chullhunda (good), very chullhunda. I'm not lying when I say I wish I could take him back to Canada with me.

An hour and a half later, I emerge like one of those toys that crumble when you depress a button and pop back up when you let go. And all this for just 20,000 won, or about 16 dollars Canadian. Any one portion of the treatment would have cost double to triple that amount at home. Granted, Koreans do not have the incomes of North Americans, but even here, this is considered a pretty good deal.

I struggle to keep my eyes open until 9 p.m., and then stumble off to bed. Husband has been fast asleep for a couple of hours. Just visiting South Korea may prove to be our best fitness plan yet.