Reflexology Reflections

This week, my attempt to do something out of the ordinary, turned out to be rather ordinary, but I thought I’d share it with you anyway.  More than anything else, writing about my experiences is a practice in discipline and an attempt to flex the writing muscle, so even if my little adventures turn out to be not so exciting, I’m still committed to telling you about them.  So here goes…

One of the things I love about living in a large multicultural city is that you can pretend that you’re travelling, without even leaving the country.  This week I went to China and it was only a 10 minute walk from my house.  I live in the east end of Toronto, just around the corner from the old part of China town. 

The area is full of all sorts of interesting stores, mostly catering for the large Chinese population in the Riverdale area… restaurants, fruit and vegetable stands, fish markets, Chinese doctors and herbalists, Chinese video rental, flower stores, and more.  Every time I walk down that busy part of Gerrard street, I feel like I’m getting a glimpse into authentic Chinese lifestyle.  Even in winter the side walk is always a scramble of all sorts of people speaking Mandarin, traditional music sounding from the stores, the usual hustle and bustle one might expect in a market place full of cheap deals on food and household wares.   It’s not uncommon to see a group of people doing Tai Chi in the park.  And often there are shoppers dressed in traditional garb; straw hats, fisherman style pants/robed etc.  There’s one guy I often see walking around who looks like he has time travelled from ancient China and somehow landed in Toronto by accident. He always looks a little dazed and confused, with “where the hell am I, and how did I get here” written all over his face.    

There are also a lot of massage and acupuncture places on the street, some that seem a little questionable, drawn red curtains and open til late if you know what I mean.  I heard through the grapevine, one of my neighbours innocently went for a massage one day, and at the end of it all she was offered a happy ending! Needless to say I’ve been a bit reluctant to go to any of those places, even though it’s reasonably priced. 

There was one shop front, however, that would always catch my eye, a centre for Reflexology.  I thought I’d like to try it because I’ve never done it before.  Those little maps of the feet with corresponding body parts always intrigued me.  I didn’t really know what a reflexology foot massage involved.  I partly imagined it would be conducted by a Chinese doctor who would then be able to give you a snapshot of your health based on a thorough massage and examination of your feet. 

With my new plan to do something ‘nouveau’ every week, I decided it was time that I find out what it was all about.   It wasn’t at all what I had imagined.  In fact it really was just a foot massage at the end of the day. But apparently that is supposed to help relieve tension throughout your body, so it was still worth the experiment. 

As soon as I walked in, I realised it wasn’t going to be what I was expecting.  Instead of  being greeted by an old chinese doctor, I was greeted by a young woman in a pink tracksuit, who was half way through eating a bowl of noodles.  She jumped up with her mouth full and addressed me in broken English.  

Once we established I was there for reflexology she led me to a room right next to the reception area.  I was expecting a Zen vibe with the appropriate Feng Shui, but in reality, there was not much attention paid to décor.  It looked a bit like an office space with temporary partition walls to create separate rooms,  the fluorescent lights blaring.  As soon as I sat down, she turned on a lamp, turned the overhead fluros off and suddenly some music that sounded like the theme song from TV series 'The Silk Road', burst through the silence. 

The room had two big ugly brown leather armchairs, and a stool covered in a worn out looking purple towel.  There were a couple of little side tables full of beauty magazines.  A fluorescent pink clock on the wall and a plastic electric chandelier eminating some soft light to create a relaxed atmosphere, (I suppose).    There was a map of feet with all the correlating body parts tacked onto the wall.  

I could hear the girl shuffling about, rather quickly, her feet barely lifting from the floor.  She came back with a laminated menu with some of my options.  She was recommending I have a lavender foot bath first for an extra $5 “it’s gooder for you”.    I gladly accepted the upgrade and she came back with a plastic lined bamboo bowel, filled with hot water, for me to soak my feet in.  I had a sneaking suspicion she suggested the upgrade so she could finish her lunch -  the relaxing music wasn’t quite loud enough to drown out the sounds of chopsticks clinking the edge of a ceramic bowl or the slurping sounds of her downing the last of the noodles.

Once she finished her lunch, she returned to the room, sat on the stool, dried my feet and proceeded with the massage.  I asked her what her name was.  ‘Helen” she said.  My grandmothers name was Helen, so I had an instant affinity for her and decided I would get to know her a little, while I was sitting there.  We chatted for the duration of the massage. 

Helen was from a small town in Southern China.  She met her Vietnamese husband there, and they decided to move to Canada for better opportunities.  They had been here for 7 years.  They have a few children.  And have since sponsored their families to live here to, parents and some siblings.  But life in Canada is not as easy as they expected.  She feels things are especially bad now, because the economy is in a recession.  It’s not easy to make money. Everything is so expensive; rent and food.  All they do is work.  They have no time for fun.  She has no time for herself. When she arrived in Canada she told me she was skinny and beautiful, but now she has no time for exercise.  She told me she would never have the money or time to do what I was doing (getting a massage)  She said for westerners it is different, life is easy, you speak the language.   She stacked here hands about 2 feet apart, one above the other, she said you are up here, we are down here.  She told me shes so busy she never has a chance to improve her English. She told me, Chinese people must always work, they don’t waste money.  She can’t afford to buy a nice coffee in a coffee shop, even though she would like to.  She said sometimes she walks down the street just to smell the fresh bread from the bakeries, but she cant afford to buy that every day, she brings the leftovers from dinner the night before.   She thought life in China was better, with all her friends around, more time for fun, life was easier, less expensive, but its too hard to go back now, everythings changed people have moved on.    This is her home now…

I suddenly felt like one of the obnoxious 1%, a part of the privliged few.  And it seemed unjust that she was there massaging my feet when her life was so much more stressful than mine.  I felt like we should switch seats and I should be giving her a massage.  To be honest I don’t even remember it much, I was so wrapped up in the conversation, I didn’t get a chance to enjoy it, plus I would have felt too guilty to enjoy it too much after hearing about the stressful life that poor Helen was having. 

So this weeks out of the ordinary experience was not quite the adventure I was looking for, but it turned out to be quite a reality check for me.  I thought I was going to walk away from it with a health analysis, but I came away with a life analysis.  

Reflexology taught me to be grateful for the freedom that I have.  It made me realise how lucky I am to have the time and the finances to do the things I want, when I want, and highlighted to me that all the little things I do for myself, like sitting in a cafe, going to restaurants, having adventures, going for massages etc are a total luxury that a lot of people in this world don’t have a chance to enjoy.   It helped me to be thankful for all that I have and to appreciate the simple things. Like many of us, I can sometimes take things for granted and get caught up feeling sorry for myself and wishing for a better life, but in reality, I have nothing to complain about. I am one of the lucky ones.  


Until the next!

xx