July 2014 | Sauce Magnusson

Gua Sha is a type of traditional Chinese Medicinal Treatment where your back is scraped with a tool, such as a piece of wood, jade, a spoon, a coin, or a rhino bone (if you're a dick). The way my wife (who's Chinese) explains it, Chinese seem to have a belief that the material type can be significant for the healing process, but I think that is probably a superstition. In any case, the scraping creates small bruising on your skin, which takes ~3 to 4 days to heal. The idea behind it, to which I don't really subscribe, is that the scraping releases toxins that are stored in skin, evidenced by the bruises. The more bruising you show, the more toxins you had in your body (that's why as a first-timer gua-shaer, I had a lot of bruising, see below). Since the scraping releases these toxins, your body is then be able to fight the toxins and remove them from your body. Chinese medicine often deals with the idea of general "toxins," in the body, but there's not much evidence any such thing exists.

Our Gua Sha device, made from Giant Panda Penis, the most magical of all Gua Sha materials

What does have scientific evidence, is that the process does help your body fight aches & pains as well as colds. What western scientists believe, is that the process activates endorphins, your morphine within, to naturally block pain. Also it might help initiate an autoimmune response, similar to X-ray radiation treatment, where X-ray damage actually causes your body to respond with proteins that induce cell death (the X-ray damage does kill cells too, but not enough to kill tumors).

Often the scrapings go along meridian lines used in acupuncture. Since the idea of Qi seems to be more of a religious belief than truth, then probably these meridian lines aren't needed, and you could scrape anywhere for the same effects. Anyways, it's good to have some lines to guide you when you're scraping, right?

Please share any of your experiences with Gua Sha! Did it work for you? Ultimately, I wasn't sick before I tried it, and I wasn't sick afterwards, so at least it didn't hurt... too much!

The not *so* painful markings on my back.

If you're ever in China, you should really treat yourself to a nice massage and a day at a spa. They are both quite cheap (maybe a 100 RMB each per person, ~15 USD, with everything included) and they're really experiences I've never had in the west. The massages are fairly straightforward. They bring you to a private room where you undress and put on some robes that they provide. Since I tried a foot massage, they come in and soak your feet in warm water. During that time they give you a brief back massage, etc. Then they going at your feet, which scrub down, rinse, and apply a moisturizer. They put a booty on my foot to keep it warm while they massaged the other foot. The massage tickled sometimes, and they thought it was funny when I would giggle, but after a while you relax and it really loosens up your feet. They also did the calves and arms, which was nice.

The spa is something I've never tried before, but I suppose it's akin to a Turkish bath or Russian Banyo, but with less man-on-man time, and more swimming in various pools. Since the Chinese are big on different medicines there are hot tubs with some medicines like Ginseng, Red Wine, Gegen （葛根) or Kudzu, 当归（dang gui），or Angelica Cutiloba, and what they said was lavender, but it looked like purple food coloring.

One of the things we tried was the Doctor Fish or Garra Rufa treatment, which uses small, toothless fish that suck dead skin off of your body to eat. It tickles quite a bit, and I'm not sure that it really does anything other than expose your feet to fish poop, but it was interesting to try.

Also in the building they had various swimming pools for both lap swimming and kiddie pools. It's a really nice experience that I recommend trying sometime!

The locker rooms were fabulous

Better than I've ever seen before for a locker room

Very Bourgeois for alleged communists!

They had red wine pools (don't drink them, I got in trouble).

Some of the doctor fish

Ahh tickles!

A funny thing was the buffet, which started at 11 AM.

People made a mass rush- since it was included, all you can eat, people figured they would run out of food.

There was literally fighting-- people grabbed the food tongs, and carried them with themselves so they wouldn't have to wait to grab food from the various bins.

And the most hilarious thing was... the company refilled the food bins when they ran out, so there was no need to fight!

Rape is not only a problem in India...

I firmly believe this lavender hot tub is actually just food dye.

The faux cave gave it a glorious ambience.

Probably urine from all of the minorities.

You see, Chinese babies don't use diapers, they just go out slits in their onesies.

Very beautiful pools

Some faux trees.

Some more of the pools

The fish pool

Faux elephants

I never knew how to spell Faux until today

Those are real goldfish, I believe.

Octomami!

Really beautiful actually.

Before fish eating my feet:

After fish eating my feet:

There's playgrounds for kids:

And a bucket full of water crashes periodically:

The prices for VIP- I guess Chinese will get a VIP card with thousands of yuans on it, then use the card for 5 years. If you spend 50,000 RMB, you will get a bonus of 20,000 RMB on your card!

For me it would be worth it, because the spa is awesome.

Beijing's Tiananmen Square is an extremely large square in the center of Beijing, where the gate to the Forbidden City is located, formerly the head of the government during imperial times. The national museum (certainly worth a visit) is also located on the square, as well as the current Chinese parliament, in the Great Hall of the People.

You can access Tiananmen Square by taking the subway to the Tiananmen stop, and walking a short distance (you will easily see the square, which is massive). Along the way there will be tons of the prerequisite vendors selling water, silly hats, and souvenirs.

In the square, you can see the entrance to the forbidden city:

The Parliament:

A monument to the phallus of the Chinese fallen:

It's hot there during the summer, so be sure to hydrate or you may fall over:

And never forget. The iron fist of state is always present.

A side entrance to the Forbidden City.

But since we're not party members, we have to wait in line...

It's not forbidden anymore...

Inside is like a Russian doll... more and more forbidden gates!

Oh no! A Manchu restorationist attempting to reinstate emperor Wu Ti and ruin the last century of Chinese hair fashion progress!

The crowds can get a bit rough...

But the sights are impressive.

The Forbidden City is a series of more and more restricted access zones.

Each zone will have a large gate.

Only certain servants and politicians could enter beyond the certain areas.

The ranking of the buildings was specified by "monsters" on the roof corners. The more monsters, the higher the ranking.

These mythical beasts are said to ensure the imperial workers would follow their duties inside, or they would leap and devour the worker.

The forbidden city also uses Feng Shui statues, like this turtle, to ward off fire (since turtles like water, of course).

You can make out a swastika on this totem. Likely it's due to Buddhist influence (the Ming dynasty was big on Buddhism, seeing as the founder worked in a Buddhist monastery as a janitor). Or could it be evidence of NAZIS FROM SPACE AND ANCIENT ALIENS???? No, it's not.