Bold Bugs

Okay, so this may sound very similar to a previous post. And it is, except that I added a very new items at the end. It is rather gross to it seems inappropriate to say "enjoy". So here it is:

It is hard not to take some things personally. Some drivers, for instance, interpret every forgotten turn signal, tailgater or slowpoke in the fast lane as a personal affront directed specifically at them. They take umbrage at these petty annoyances despite the fact that they are hurtling down a crowded interstate anonymously encased within a ton of steel. In fact, it is not personal, there are simply a lot of lousy, distracted drivers on the road. Whereas, the legitimacy of my complaint is that the affront did occur in my personal space.

Like many moldering, tropical locales, Hong Kong has a rich and plentiful population of creepy, eeewww-inspiring creatures; flying roaches, furry caterpillars, gargantuan spiders.  Such an emissary from the bug world confronted me one evening after I put my little gremlins to bed.  

Most evenings, for two glorious hours, I relax with a glass of red wine and mindless television.  That night is was to be Grey's Anatomy paired with an Australian Shiraz-Cabernet.  I had set the glass down on the coffee table and crossed the room to the DVD player to insert the intended disc.  

While humans are not known for the best eyesight in the animal kingdom, our eyes are good at detecting movement.  And at the moment my eyes were riveted by the movement on my wine glass.  Since there are no witnesses, I can only surmise that the look on my face combined revulsion with indignation as I watched a roach mosey up the stem of my wine glass.  
In a disturbing reversal of roles, I scurried toward the kitchen at steroid-worthy speed. Concerned the perp would escape in my absence I moved quickly; donning Playtex gloves and grabbing an industrial-sized wad of paper towels; the housewife’s equivalent of a hazmat suit. Shifting gears, I seamlessly switched to stealth mode as I crept back into the living room; six seasons of 24 were not lost on me. Evidently, I did not inspire any fear in the multi-legged interloper because rather than making a run for it, he had casually sauntered farther up the wine stem--savoring the bouquet perhaps.  

Grabbing a roach off a wine-stem without breaking the glass or spilling the wine, given my heightened state of agitation, was going to be a difficult maneuver.  I determined it needed to be a two-handed operation with simultaneous execution.   Despite my hasty planning and the intense pressure, the execution was flawless.  One roach squished beyond recognition.  

However, the incident cast an edge over the evening; relaxation was replaced with vigilance. Maybe oenophile roaches are a rare breed; I tried to tell myself.  But would my English muffin be safe in the morning?  

While bugs coming in contact or being involved in any way with food or beverage consumption is distasteful, the mouth is not the only delicate region of human anatomy. I cannot be the only person who has tried to open something with my teeth; can I? But few people try to open a bottle DOWN THERE.

Like many people, my first path in the morning is trod to the bathroom. And like many others, my eyes are not completely focused at that time. On this morning I turned to flush the toilet in time to see an unwelcome visitor perched on the inside of the bowl; a large, voracious mosquito. I live on the fifteenth floor of a high rise apartment block, how did that thing get in my toilet? Unable to stop the momentum of my finger plunging the flush lever, I simultaneously leapt up and back as the startled blood-sucker flew up into my face. I had the presence of mind to swing shut the bathroom door so it was just he and I; mano y mano.

If the shock of discovering a mosquito in such close proximity to my good girl was not enough, now I had the five minute romp around the bathroom trying to kill the little bastard. It is like they fly with a faulty Romulan cloaking device; there he is...no, now he disappeared...wait, here he is again on the other side of the room...how did he get over there...good lord, are there more than one...die, Die, DIEEEEE. Definitely awake now.

Most bugs that make an appearance at my home do so in my bathroom. Usually I find them on the floor and even though it is gross and unsettling, they are easy to dispense with a quick squish from my flip-flop; ditto walls, however, ceilings are when things get dicey. But on my bath towel? Is nothing sacred? This time the assault was a botched operation and the squirmy, sinewy creature plummeted to the bathtub. Retrieving the handheld shower head I blasted him back to whatever hell he ascended from. Perhaps he would live to tell the tale of the battle he had fought and lost, to dissuade others from venturing up the pipes. Better yet, his corpse would tell the tale for him.

It is hard not to take these bold bug attacks personally, when the bugs themselves have attempted the most intimate of invasion routes. That, and the fact that I am the only member of my household being targeted.

Free For All

When I arrived in Shanghai in 2000, the most common vehicle on the road was the Volkswagen Santana. Santana’s were the taxi cabs of Shanghai. In the course of automotive evolution the Santana was eventually replaced by the Jetta. If Santana sounds more like a rock band then a car, it is because in the United States it was marketed in the mid-eighties as the Audi Fox. Whenever I saw one of these vehicles, which was every time I left the house, “Black Magic Woman” would invariably get stuck in my head. True, not nearly as annoying as “Copacabana” or “Living La Vida Loca” but, as a rock fan it just seemed wrong that a classic was reduced to the status of an ear worm. I did not have long to fret, because after a few minutes of driving, Carlos Santana’s smoldering vocals and searing guitar riffs would be replaced by Ted Nugent. All that was required to unleash the Motor City Madman inside my head was to navigate a traffic intersection in Shanghai and the next thing I knew “...it’s a free for all...’’ would be my new internal sound track.

Typically, my driver, Mr. Chang, was at the helm. It is difficult to pinpoint precisely when it started, but unbeknownst to Mr. Chang, my husband and I referred to him as the Chang Man; reverently, of course. He was our fifth and final driver: our first quit for a better gig, (huh?), our second emigrated to France, (huh, huh?), and the others were fired. The Chang Man was the last man standing. In more than seven years of employment he was late for work only once and missed work only when he was hospitalized. He was so bad that we did not think he was going to make it. But he recovered and was back at work, albeit considerably thinner, several weeks later. He had a jovial manner and a persistent smile. The Chang Man loved to drive, and he especially loved our first car, a Lexus. One of the rare occasions that I witnessed his face register displeasure was when we replaced the aging Lexus with an Audi. Actually, he looked more betrayed than anything.

The Chang Man and I witnessed some hair-raising driving during our time together in Shanghai. Typically I would look horrified and he would laugh. He may have been laughing more at my expression that the catalyst for my expression. Expats bicker about which country in the world has the craziest drivers, usually India and the Philippines get more votes than China, with Saudi Arabia not far behind. But in the end, like Dante’s Inferno, you can write about levels of hell, but at the end of the day, it is still all hell.

The area where we lived in Shanghai was new. In the early 90’s it was farm fields.

By the end of the decade it would have a cluster of skyscrapers, including the one of the tallest buildings in the world, the Jin Mao; vast avenues and boulevards that were not congested; and an enormous park with a man-made lake to rival New York’s Central Park.

At an intersection of one of these wide roads our vehicle came to a stop to wait for the light. Apparently a small van in the far right lane, two lanes over from us, realized a right turn would be a mistake and a left turn would be preferable. The only problem with that decision was that quite a bit of traffic had gathered making it impossible to simply turn left. So the little van exercised the only option remaining, it backed up. The little van was backing up at a steep angle so as to cover the four lanes of traffic between their current position and their desired left turn lane before more traffic gathered at the light. The van’s only impediment was the location of our vehicle in their path. Misjudging his vehicle’s trajectory, the little van driver backed directly into the right, rear of our vehicle. The Chang Man and I watched this unfold, oddly amused. When the Chang Man surveyed the damage he had mercy on the apologetic van driver and deemed the scratch to the bumper minor. The small van driver did not escape without a finger wag from the Chang Man, however.

Mr. Chang employed the finger wag on other misbehaving drivers. Nothing was uttered, no words or insults or any other gestures; just the finger wag. More gentle admonishment than insult gesture, the finger wag was a stern reprimand from a senior driver to an amateur. The last time I saw the finger wag my mother was using it on me. I was not even sure if this was a gesture used in China, as I never saw another Chinese person ever do it. But it was Mr. Chang’s strongest rebuke to another, delinquent, driver.

Does your life flash before your eyes if you are not aware the end is near? Or, do you have to have some indication that you are about to cash out to get the lifetime recap? Since I occupied the backseat of the vehicle, I frequently failed to pay attention to the driving environment. In Shanghai, getting from departure point to destination was often akin to sausage-making and I preferred not to look. Only when the brakes started squealing, my torso tested the seatbelt tension, and I heard the unmistakable sound of the Chang Man sucking air through his teeth, did I get any indication that a traffic foible had been committed. Sucking air through his teeth was as close as the Chang Man got to expressing negative emotion.

These Final Destination moments usually occurred on one of the expressways. The scenario was amazingly consistent; another driver had missed their exit. Rather than going to the trouble of proceeding to the next exis,t they simply apply the brakes, stop, and reverse to their intended exit. The only problem of course, is that there is pesky, oncoming traffic behind them; like us. In order to keep from testing Shanghai’s mass casualty response system our only hope was that our brakes, and those of the many cars behind us, were all in working order. This was a disturbingly common occurrence. Somehow we survived.

Traffic accidents are adjudicated somewhat differently in China than back home. Fault is often determined by the location of the point of impact. This fact was demonstrated to me the evening a scooter collided with our vehicle. I thought for sure the Chang Man was taking the fall for this one. How little I understood Chinese motor vehicle laws. Contrary to perceptions outside of China, most Chinese do not ride bicycles, not in the big cities anyway (big being more than 8 million people). However, in the Pudong District of Shanghai the major roads still had bike lanes. These were populated with all manner of two-wheeled vehicles; bicycles, scooters, and motor cycles. Most other drivers were completely heedless of traffic in the bike lanes when they made right or left turns. The prevailing attitude seemed to be “bikers beware.” Mr. Chang shared that perspective. One evening, while making a right turn we both jerked our heads to the right after hearing and feeling a solid “thud” toward the back of the car. Mr. Chang pulled over and we both got out in time to see a very angry scooter driver pick himself and his scooter up off the ground. Police arrived quickly on the scene and after a cursory glance deemed the scooter driver at fault. The deciding factor? The scooter had impacted our vehicle past the mid-way point of the vehicle. Thus, our car was ahead of his scooter. Therefore, he was a fault. Mr. Chang, exonerated, replaced his concerned expression with his trademark smile and we motored on home. At least in Shanghai, it really is a free for all.

Rub a Dub Dub

My first time was in Mexico. Though not technically a massage, the woman doing my pedicure did rub my feet and calves before applying polish. It was relaxing and pampering; for this I did not require repeat exposure to develop an addiction. Unfortunately, regular pedicures were not in the meager budget of a mendicant college student. Semesters passed and I had almost forgotten how nice it felt to be rubbed by a complete stranger who was not trying to have sex with me.

A few years and steady paychecks later I became a massage adventurer; it all began in Korea. Hedonism was not on the itinerary when I booked a budget-tourist excursion to the Korean cultural capital of Kyongju. As this was a bargain tour, some quid pro quo was required. Prior to checking in at the swanky Kyongju resort my tour group was booked at, the tour bus was forced to swing by the cities of Pohang and Ulsan to visit to a steel mill, shipyard, and a bus factory. It was a kind of “shock and awe” of Korean industrial might. The second half of this incongruous tour was scheduled to take place at a resort in what was described as the Santa Fe of Korea by someone who evidently had never been to the Santa Fe of New Mexico; no adobe, pueblos, or pretentious art galleries. There were however, a lot of headless Buddha statues, a big bell, some mound-shaped graves, and coach-loads of tourists.

Regarding the headless statues; it was not a Venus de Milo thing where the heads accidentally fell off or were eroded off over the centuries. These were deliberate decapitations and the statues were not the only victims. My trip to Kyongju may have been budget conscious, but in addition to learning that in 2004 South Korea surpassed Japan as the world’s leading ship builder, I also learned that when Confucianism supplanted Buddhism in Korea in the 14th century, heads rolled.

My obligations fulfilled, the first item on my weekend agenda was a visit to the ladies’ spa. It was cavernous and damp with apple-shaped retirees wearing matching black maillots right out of a Lands’ End catalog. In plain view of everyone were two massage tables. Two masseuses stood at the ready. Unfamiliar with the world of massaging it did not occur to me that this was in any way unusual. But the masseuses were both clad in their underwear and bras; lacy ones. One of my female traveling companions saw me eyeing the tables and suggested I give it a try. I hopped up on the damp table, they apparently hosed if off between guests, and I was promptly doused with a generous portion of oil. The term portion is not accidental, as the oil had a faintly culinary scent. For the next hour I was rubbed with sesame oil by a lingerie-clad masseuse. I wondered if this was how human sacrifices were prepared before being tossed to the ravenous Aztec gods; the richly scented air, the pounding and kneading, and let’s not forget the gathering audience looking on in anticipation.

Initiated into the world of spa indulgence, I was eager to partake upon my arrival in Japan. Japanese love their bath houses. Colleagues were unanimously enthusiastic about the experience and strongly urged I give it a try. I did not have to look hard to find a bathhouse--Japan is famous for them and they are in plentiful supply. I checked in one Saturday morning at one not far from my home. The Japanese are particular about showering and cleaning yourself off before slipping into the water. They also segregate the genders, so there is no need to wander around with your gut sucked in, so much more relaxing letting it all hang out. And bathhouses are more than merely public hot tubs. They are entertainment complexes that just happen to be centered on being clean. Leaving the bathing area for one of the other entertainment options, patrons don what can only be described as pajamas. Cotton, pressed, and comfy, I padded around the halls in slippers, smiling at my co-bathers dressed in the same pajamas. Everyone appeared happy and sedate, as if we had all just taken our meds. Some people sat in electric massage chairs located in sunny atriums. Others dined in the cafe. And for the really adventurous, there was the karaoke lounge.

I followed the siren call to the massage room. Similar to my Korean experience, the massage beds were communally located. I grew concerned as there seemed to be no gender segregation. I need not have worried. Pajamas were not to be removed and additional towels were draped over me--so I resembled an accident scene victim. Of the six beds lined up in the room, only one other was occupied when I arrived. The masseuse pointed to a bed and I obediently climbed up and laid face down. That is when my hour of torture began.

Apparently I am not as culturally relativistic as I aspire to be. You would think the point of massage would be universal; rub sore, tired, or tense muscles to provide relief. But, just as different cultures have different ideas about what tastes good, Vegemite, there appears to be a departure in what constitutes enjoyable massage. I had signed up for shiatsu massage. Shiatsu sounds disturbingly like “me beat you.” Turns out, that is not far from the truth.

I wistfully recalled those oily, scantily-clad Korean ladies the entire time Tojo was avenging my back. At one point I wondered if she had called in reinforcements. There were simply too many things touching me at once. It was then I realized she was on top of me working me over with her bony knees and tiny hands. At another point I thought she was gouging me with a broom handle, only to realize it must have been her elbow. No, I did not cry out. Whoever was on the other table did not utter so much as a grunt. I would not be the first to break. The only sound I made was the sigh of relief when the towel was pulled back indicating I had survived, and was being released.



Chastened by my Japanese experience, but determined to give massage addiction another shot, I visited one of the ubiquitous “blind man” massage establishments in Shanghai. While some of the masseuses are blind, many are not. My masseuse was a young man who had his eyesight. I mention this to other expats, veterans of blind man massage parlors, and they wince; evidently you never go with a young male. This guy made Tojo seem like Hello Kitty. The problem was, instead of massaging muscles, this guy was targeting bones and joints. One of us was in the wrong place. I was trying to get a massage and this guy was trying to get state secrets.

In Palm Springs I was offered a menu of massage choices. Typically a creature of habit, I decided to instead try something new and exotic; what a mistake. My exotic massage consisted a stream of oil poured onto my forehead. I was cross-eyed by the end of the hour. Episodes like this only confirm why I always order the same thing--deviation from the norm only courts disaster.

A fellow expat who had recently visited Turkey described her experience with a male masseuse there. She said the experience was rather unsettling as his hands often wandered out of bounds and just as she would begin to object they would flitter back to safe territory. So rather than relaxing, she spent the remainder of the massage vigilant for any illegal immigration. I never experienced border intrusions, but I did receive a chest massage from a female masseuse while I was in Singapore; yes, my entire chest. One thing I was beginning to understand about massage, masseuses bring their personality to the table. A young woman in Shanghai remarked while she was rubbing my legs, “You have a very beautiful bottom.” I politely thanked her, but I bet she says that to all her customers.