Well, I Got My Boobs Massaged In Hong Kong

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Earlier this month, I was in Hong Kong and China with the boyfriend I’m always bragging about, and let me tell you, a first visit to Asia is chock-full of new experiences. My first major culture shock was trying to figure out how to take a shit and throw up simultaneously (while hungover) in a toilet that looked like this:

It was wildly unsuccessful. Neither bodily function ended up in the target hole. I felt too guilty to leave it for a bathroom attendant to stumble upon, so I spent a good part of 30 minutes doing the cleanup myself. This didn’t even make it into the top five most miserable experiences of my life, bless my heart.

I encountered my second major culture shock on a massage table. One of the wonderful things about Asia is that they firmly believe in the healing power of touch and offer it everywhere at a much cheaper price than in the States. So, my ass was steady at the masseuse. I got three different kinds of massages in the eight days I was there because why the fuck wouldn’t you?

Now, my boyfriend had warned me that sometimes in Asia they massage your boobs because, like massaging your butt cheeks in the US, they see it as another part of your body that’s normal to do work on.

And sure enough, as I was lying face up, buck ass naked with a towel draped across me, my masseuse, a nice Asian woman in her thirties stopped in the middle of her work and propositioned me by pointing at my boobs and making circular hand motions. I had already decided I was down to try it. And not in a creepy way. Any woman who goes to a gynecologist has had her vagina acquainted with fingers, Q-tips, and uncomfortable metal devices. It’s not sexual, it’s just part of maintaining your health.

So, I gave her the go ahead. She then followed up with a “shh shh don’t tell boss” and a friendly laugh. This… threw me off a little bit. Wait, was this normal or was it not normal? I thought this was standard procedure here. Was I getting myself into the female equivalent of a keep-it-on-the-DL happy ending? Her English was limited, and my Cantonese was nonexistent, so we had to resort to five minutes of hand signals, unintelligible whispers, and laughing to figure out what we were agreeing upon.

This secretive attitude would have been a red flag in most situations, and especially in the US, but my lady was so bubbly and relaxed that I wasn’t that concerned about it. We finally broke some ground when I mixed “Okay no tell” with the shh shh hand signal, and on we went.

And it was totally fucking chill.

Until the part where she looked at me with worry in her eyes, did a little more digging around, encircled a hand around the tip of her pointer finger, and said, “Bad.” A symbol that I took to mean that she felt a lump in my breast. As I have OCD, I took this very seriously and have already scheduled an appointment with my gynecologist. I am distressed that I could have Hereditary breast and ovarian cancer (HBOC) because one of my ovaries has also been sore.

This hereditary disease does not, by the way, run in my family. Once again, my gynecologist will probably tell me nothing is wrong with me. But you just never know, I’ll tell Dr. Coin, you just. never. never. know. She’ll feign validation and put another tally next to my frequent flier status.

But yeah, other than that, totally fucking chill.

She even told me that I was a very beautiful lady a couple of times, once while making a mound shape with her hand to symbolize a breast. And she genuinely meant it as a sincere compliment. I told her she was a beautiful lady, too. She pointed at me and gave a thumbs up and then pointed at herself while only giving a pinky up.

Bae tells me that it’s a part of their culture to deny compliments and maintain modesty, but I just couldn’t have this cute lady talking about herself with a pinky. I pointed at her and gave her two thumbs up to remind her that she, too, was a beautiful lady, so help me God. We laughed and settled on the fact that we were both hot bitches making our way in the world. The future is female.

My hypothesis after talking to a couple of people who verified that boob massages are a pretty standard thing in other countries is that Westerners probably just aren’t expecting it and then freak the fuck out when it happens. I’m guessing the boss was like, “We don’t want to get in trouble for inadvertently sexually assaulting people, so cool it.”

Right before I walked out of the room, she made sure to mention, sShh shh,” and I gave her a “shh shh” back to solidify our pact. It was our secret handshake. We were bonded. Soul sisters, if you will.

Just a couple of girls sticking it to the man..

Toilet cred: SuSanA Secretariat on Flickr

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hannahrose

Excuse me, but I've got some shit to say. @xohannahrozay on IG and Twitter.

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