Once when I was in a sauna in Korea, I saw a guy with a series of red polka-dot marks on his back, each one about the same diameter as a cup. I assumed that either he slept on the world’s cheapest bed, or his wife beat him up very precisely with a wooden mallet (he, presumably assumed I was giving him the glad eye).

On Saturday, I had the traditional Chinese medicine treatment that is the actual cause of those bruises- it’s called ba huo gan and goes like this:

flamer

You swab the inside of a glass bowl with alcohol, light it, then put it on the patient’s back. They whimper like a little girl as the alcohol burns off, this creates a vacuum and sucks the (ample) spare skin up into the bowl.
Repeat this until the whole back is covered in globes, and the guy can ripple the skin on his back to make a sound like a wind chime.

finished job

Put a cotton sheet over him, go for a cup of tea.

Pull them off, one by one, enjoying the slurping sound as the air rushes back in- try to ignore the tears and pleas for mercy coming from the cowardly laowai.

huo gan
Her face is a picture isn’t it?

Step back, admire handywork.

after

It looks a bit rough, but I actually enjoyed the whole thing, Liam described it as feeling like a stretched canvas- and I’d say it’s like that, plus a pleasant sunburn. The health benefits are numerous / dubious, but one thing is for sure- the marks have barely faded after 3 days and if they’re not gone before my July beach holiday, you can expect to hear scare stories about a giant Octupus on the beaches of Majorca.

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