Editors note: this entry was mainly written about a week ago in shanghai.
Yesterday morning after a massive breakfast, we headed out to the suburbs for a presentation at China GM. They have a 50/50 JV with Shanghai Auto Company due to government requirements, so it was really interesting hearing about the cultural issues of blending old school detroit with up and coming Shanghai. GM has been really successful in China, with Buicks being a very popular car. They are selling almost as many cars in China as in the US and China is projected to become GM’s biggest market in a few years. After the talk, we went and toured a factory which was pretty cool, but not that different from a factory anywhere.
We had the afternoon off, and a lot of people were talking about going to get massages. Haiping, one of the organizers mentioned that she was going to get massage therapy from her doctor at a local hospital. My back had been pretty sore from all the airplane, train and bus rides and when I mentioned that she offered to bring me with her. I agreed, so her Nan and I went to a local hospital. The doctor was around our age and very fashionably dressed and spoke good English. After a quick chat he started in on me, giving me a very painful but great massage and cracking my back. While this was going on, Nan went and registered me for the Shanghai public health system, so now I have medical records and a Medical ID card in China. After the massage, I got cupping, which I have had before. They put a torch in a glass cup to burn up all the oxygen and make a vaccum, then stick in on my back where it forms super tight suction to draw out the toxins. They put about 10 on each of us, so now our backs are covered in big circular bruises, but my back feels way better now. The whole procedure cost about $15.
After the massage we went out to dinner at a northeastern Chinese restaurant. The food was great and very typical of that region (lamb kebabs, dumplings, and lots of pickled vegetables. We had more food than we could eat for about $4 per person. Chinese food is incredibly cheap, you can get a big bowl of noodles for about a buck, or a nice sit down meal for under 5.
My Chinese doctor
The aftermath of the cupping
