A New York City Chinatown Diary
I follow Dr. Zhang down an outdoor, steep staircase to the basement, where I find two more massage chairs and two cots. I’m feeling quite alone at this point—the woman at the desk has disappeared—not sure that I am liking this experience so far. But it seems too late to bail. “The opera singer, the opera singer…” I keep repeating in my mind. The doctor tells me to lie down and take off my shoes. That sounds innocent enough, so I do as he says as he washes his hands.
I nervously ask him if this will hurt. Not much, he says, which doesn’t help much. He chatters away in Chinese, telling me about his technique, about how he studied with his father as a young boy in Wuhan, how his father told him to follow the Communist Party but never to join. As he distracts me, he inserts eight needles, forcefully but with absolute precision.
I follow Dr. Zhang down an outdoor, steep staircase to the basement, where I find two more massage chairs and two cots. I’m feeling quite alone at this point—the woman at the desk has disappeared—not sure that I am liking this experience so far. But it seems too late to bail. “The opera singer, the opera singer…” I keep repeating in my mind. The doctor tells me to lie down and take off my shoes. That sounds innocent enough, so I do as he says as he washes his hands.
I nervously ask him if this will hurt. Not much, he says, which doesn’t help much. He chatters away in Chinese, telling me about his technique, about how he studied with his father as a young boy in Wuhan, how his father told him to follow the Communist Party but never to join. As he distracts me, he inserts eight needles, forcefully but with absolute precision.
Each time, he pushes the needle in until it hits a magic spot, where I
feel a split-second jolt of pain, then tightness, akin to that
delicious pain you experience when somebody massages your back and hits
the sore spot. Once they are all in, my face feels vaguely swollen and
just a bit tingly. “These are meridians,” he says, describing what he
has hit. “You can’t see them. But if it hurts a bit, this is doing
good.”
Dr. Zhang lights what sounds like a blowtorch behind my head. This can’t be good. Again, visions of James Bond are dancing through my head. He is lighting, it turns out, a clump of grass called “Ai,” which smells exactly like marijuana and apparently has curative qualities. He waves a wand with this burning hemp around the needles, then heats each on with the embers. I feel a further tightening, but it is soothing. I close my eyes, as Dr. Zhang plays some Peking opera and begins to sing along.
After the acupuncture and a rigorous backrub during which he pounds and digs excruciatingly at several pressure points below my shoulder blades, Dr. Zhang pronounces that he is done. He has spent exactly two hours on me. The bill is $50—cash only, no receipts. I feel a weird rush of energy as I walk back to the F train along Chinatown’s dark streets. I think my jaw feels—about 20 percent better. I am definitely going back.
Related Reading:
Paging Dr. Zhang: A New York City Chinatown Diary
But Dr. Zhang, Where's James Bond? A New York City Chinatown Diary
Dr. Zhang lights what sounds like a blowtorch behind my head. This can’t be good. Again, visions of James Bond are dancing through my head. He is lighting, it turns out, a clump of grass called “Ai,” which smells exactly like marijuana and apparently has curative qualities. He waves a wand with this burning hemp around the needles, then heats each on with the embers. I feel a further tightening, but it is soothing. I close my eyes, as Dr. Zhang plays some Peking opera and begins to sing along.
After the acupuncture and a rigorous backrub during which he pounds and digs excruciatingly at several pressure points below my shoulder blades, Dr. Zhang pronounces that he is done. He has spent exactly two hours on me. The bill is $50—cash only, no receipts. I feel a weird rush of energy as I walk back to the F train along Chinatown’s dark streets. I think my jaw feels—about 20 percent better. I am definitely going back.
Related Reading:
Paging Dr. Zhang: A New York City Chinatown Diary
But Dr. Zhang, Where's James Bond? A New York City Chinatown Diary
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