Today I was treated to an abundance of Chinese hospitality. It all began at 9 am, when I met Dr. Gao to visit the local indoor swimming pool. Dr. Gao is the new doctor in the PC medical office, and she is very sweet. She also works part-time at the hospital affiliated with my medical college. I had met her last week when we toured the Luzhou hospital, and she mentioned that she swims regularly for exercise. I asked her to show the pool to me sometime, so I could see for myself whether or not the it was clean. I was warned before my arrival in China that the pools were not clean, and a good place to catch nasty little diseases. So today we checked it out, and it was a beautiful place, though suspiciously lacking the comforting smell of cholorine. We'll see if I'm brave enough to take the plunge. I would love to swim, but I'm not so interested in being sick.

After the pool visit, Dr. Gao and I rambled around town, passing through several open markets before lunch. We went to a large plant market, and I bought a lovely jade plant and some bulbs that apparently bloom in the winter. Dr. Gao also presented me with a lovely Christmas cactus that I was eyeing, which I have christened Doctor in her honor. As a sidenote, the jade plant is named George, because it has a very bush-like shape.

Tonight I again had dinner with my Luzhou host family (I don't know how else to refer to them). We went to a fancy restaurant and had a huge dinner, toasting each other frequently with red wine and soy milk for the kids. They had also invited another family they are friends with, and my counterpart teacher, Yu Yuan. It was a nice time with friendly and generous people.

After dinner the women went upstairs to do "foot care." Foot care is something unique to China, as far as I know. It is somewhat similar to a pedicure, but taken to a whole new level. I wasn't quite sure what I was in for, but wow--was it great. It was me, Mrs. Sun, her friend (name unknown), my counterpart teacher Yu Yuan and little Xiao Xiao. Foot care seems to be a group activity, as this salon--which is exclusively for foot care--has numerous rooms with varying numbers of beds in them. Our room had four beds (Xiao Xiao abstained from foot care), and so we had four foot care practitioners. They serve tea and sliced pears, and you have a pillow and blanket. Also, we each had a special pair of pants to suit up in, white elastic waist-banded things that were a bit short on me. I amused the crowd when I paraded around, pre-foot care, saying "hen piaoliang, hen piaoliang!" ("very pretty"). Anyhow, the actual foot care treatment lasts just over an hour, beginning with an herbal foot bath/scrub. Next is a crazy foot massage. Every part of my foot was attended to.

Now, please do not be confused by the "foot care" moniker--it's no mere foot massage. Oh no, no, no...rather, it is more like a full body massage, but with clothes on. After we finished with the feet, she moved up to my legs, and I don't think I've ever had a better or more thorough leg massage. Then I was flipped over for a brief back rub, too. And then it STILL wasn't over--the last bit was a bag of hot pebbles rubbed over my back and legs. Nice.

As you envision this, it is important to keep in mind that Chinese massage differs from most methods I've experienced in the US. A lot of the time, I felt like a piece of meat that needed tenderizing. They literally pound on you, punch you and pull you in every direction. You may wonder how this is relaxing, and at first it really isn't--you kind of wish they'd stop beating you up. Then, however, you give in. You let go and stop resisting the onslaught from your masseuse's tiny hands. You relax. And tonight as I lay there, going through the internal process of giving over, I thought that the foot care routine was an apt metaphor for my whole China experience. You think you know what you are getting yourself into, but truly, you don't. After a period of time where you ask yourself what the hell is going on, you succumb to the pummeling, knowing that it'll do you good in the end. Only after that tiny surrender do you start to feel better. And while I've barely been here for five months, I think I'll live this process over and over during my stay here.



Oh, and I almost forgot--I got to keep the special pants as a souvenir. :-)