Pulverized

"Do you have any problems?"

"No..."

"Oh, I see, you just come today for relax?" said Michael, the well recommended Taiwanese massage guy that my mom frequently went to for Chinese 'massage'. I put that in quotations for a reason, which you'll soon see.

It started out okay, a few moments of feeling flattened like a pancake in several spots and the standard pokes and prods that you'd expect from a Chinese massage. I found myself face down in a heavily toweled head-hole, and despite the stuffiness I caught myself driftin off to sleep once or twice (couldn't hide those beginnings of snores).

I was rudely awakened though when he began to work on my lower legs. He literally kneaded them like they were MEANT to be silly putty, running his entire arm down my calves and rubbing so damn hard I thought the meat was gonna come off. He then proceeded to use his nailed fingers to find my tendons and apparently try to separate them from my muscles, pinching and scraping and at the same time pressing through my legs.

At this point I thought - maybe I should say something (as this was NOT exactly 'relaxing') - but then, maybe pain is good for the soul, just to be able to appreciate the nonexistence of pain. So, I kept it in, for a good while.

THEN, he turned me over. The tenderizing of my whole body continued, and all the while I imagined I was a prison inmate/terrorist being tortured until I told the truth. I felt like a wiener schnitzel, pounded by a human version of one of those metal studded hammers, ready to be breaded and fried. I eventually made whimpering noises, to which he just responded with a "yes you are sore, velly sore" and continued rippin through my muscles!!!

When it finally ended, I asked my mom whether it was supposed to hurt that much. Apparently it is (!!), and now my blood circulation is supposed to be much better. It better be, because I totally feel like I've been run over by a truck 4x. :P

FUR IS BAD

Today on the corner of Robson and Burrard, there was an anti-fur protest outside of Bebe, a major retailer who uses real fur in their items. They were there to tell people not to buy products with fur, because alot of animals are inhumanely slaughtered and skinned alive just for a piece of trim for your new jacket or scarf.

Surprisingly, many people didn't bat an eyelash and continued shopping, not even taking the time to listen to what the people were saying, or even if they considered the thought that it might be true, they would just rather not know the details to it.

I couldn't help feeling really sick and disgusted while watching the footage they had of animals being stepped on, necks almost broken, hanging from something while kicking their front legs, while their skin was being ripped and slice off their bodies. The poor things, and what was all this for? Just to adorn a fashion item???

I hadn't seen anything as brutal as the videos today since I went to the bullfight in Spain last July. If you're at all interested and have any sort of care for animals, you might want to watch the embedded video for an insider look at what really goes on. I hope it opens up your eyes too...

Home

Got home last night after a long-ass flight. Went straight to dinner with the fam and the usual family friends from HK. Heard the predictable lines of "You lost weight" and "You gained weight (but thats good cuz it means you are takin good care of yourself)" and "How pretty your daughter(s) are" etc. Getting pretty tired of all that as it seems so fake and you know its just something thats obligatory for Chinese people to say to any Chinese girl. Ah well.

I have to admit that I wasn't really that excited to come home this time around. Sure its Christmas and its always that I miss home during Xmas, and I do miss family and friends and all the delicious Vancity food, but there's just something different this time around. If I had to pinpoint it, I think it's cuz this is the first time that it doesn't really feel like home here. It's like that line from Garden State:

Andrew Largeman: You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone.

Sam: I still feel at home in my house.

Andrew Largeman: You'll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for you kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.

It's so strange, like when I was making tea this morning and wondering where the sugar was, I realised that there's no sugar jar here, like the small one I have back home in Amsterdam. Instead, there was just a big canister for cooking normal food with sugar, so I just skipped it altogether. It just seemed strange to me, and so reverse from before, when I would use the stuff at home in vancouver as a 'sane point' with which to measure everything else in life. Now, what I do in Amsterdam is what seems most normal...

I guess its all part of growing up, and moving out...