YOU would have said yes, too!
Guess what? The Rambutan Roundup has gotten its first official coupon code. If you have a deep, underlying hunger for any of the following services from Great Wall Chinese Medicine…a woman and immigrant owned business…
Head Spa / Full Body Massage / Foot Spa / Face & Head Massage
Traditional Acupuncture
Moxibustion
Cupping (Ba Guan) / Moving Cupping
TuiNa - Chinese Medical Massage
Medical Reflexology
Scraping (Gua Sha)
Infrared Lighting / Electric Stimulation / Ultrasound
Manual Therapy (Zheng Gu)
You can get 25% off by using our code, CLUBR25, through booking online here.
I know this is so out of character for me… Chinese medicine? Just kidding, probably super in character. So, to really set the scene, my roommate and I went to this particular Chinese medicine spa and clinic because our friend works there as a receptionist/everything woman. We were dropping off matcha for her, said hello, and suddenly, her mother appeared and smiled behind our friend. Uh oh, I’m sure both me and my roommate thought. What does she want to do to us this time?
Now why did they make me pose like a rotisserie chicken?
Side note - my roommate and I have been in this situation before, so we should have known better. Last time, they took professional photos of hot stones on my back and I could hear the click of the camera when it was happening. See photo.
It turns out her mom, Dr. Qingsong Xiao, wanted to perform **Chinese fire cupping on us. I’ve never been cupped in my life, much less Chinese fire cupped! They (her mom) say it’s supposed to help draw out and eliminate pathogenic factors such as wind, cold, damp and heat. There’s also supposed to be respiratory benefits through improving lung function and reducing congestion - great for people who have nicotine related issues. Athletes are also freaks for it, if you’ve noticed.
And who are we to say no to our friend’s mom, who has a doctorate in Chinese medicine?
**I went to go look up how Great Wall Chinese Medicine described traditional fire cupping and instead found this reel of what suspiciously looks like my back on their instagram. Enjoy.
Stock photo of Genghis Khan. Looks a little filtered.
A little more about Dr. Qingsong Xiao… she’s got an unbelievable resume. She’s a 33rd generation Shaolin Qi Gong healer. Do you know how crazy that is? It’s give or take an 800 to 1000 year old practice, depending on how you count a generation. From my research (googling “what dynasty was around 1100 CE”), that was the Song Dynasty era of China, right before Genghis Khan conquered China. GENGHIS KHAN?
Back to the cupping of it all, my friend and her mother popped them on me, went to go put the cups on my roommate, came back four minutes later and said, “Oh! That got really dark really fast.” And of course, I said the silliest thing ever in this sort of situation.
“It really can’t be that bad.”
Turns out, as always, yes it can. It looked like a giant squid had risen up and enacted a personal vendetta against me.
Dr. Xiao told me that I had “a lot of fire" that she needed to draw out, and to come back in two weeks. My roommate on the other hand, had the cups on for 10 minutes and came out with barely a suction mark. I’m not even posting a photo of her because it’s embarrassing how light hers are compared to mine. Sometimes life is unfair, and your roommate has less fire inside and less wetness in her lungs, despite you living in the same place and doing many of the same activities together.
Well, I highly recommend getting Chinese fire cupped, despite looking like a squid attacked me - it suctioned all the tension and my greatest worries right out of me. The drive home was amazing. Shout out to my friend's mom and ancient China.
