Ghost Night, No Out

24th Aug. of 2010, according to Chinese lunar calendar is the Ghost Day, similar to Halloween, but more about sacrificial rites, less fun!

During the whole day, every family should do some rites like burning ghost money, offer food for worshiping ancients. In the evening, those people will come to enjoy the rites. As the old generations said, on this day, people should not go out after sunset, but stay at home with families.

A friend of mine from Germany will fly back on 25th, he definitely wanted to enjoy his last night in China by night out. I made a plan for us to experience Chinese medical massage “Guasha/刮痧”.

Guasha is a traditional medical massage from folks round about Ming Dynasty, no exact history record. Guasha used to be a home medical care, needs oil and a coin, then people can start for another person on his/her back. By scratching all over the back, most of the meridian lines are opened, which can help the metabolism afterwards and get rid of the cold and humidity inside the body organs. Because of its functional usage and relatively easy maneuver, it has been one of the most popular massages in current China.

It was not late that time, but the bus was almost empty, which usually is quite crowded. We were discussing the new metro line 10 has brought a lot of change. Now cast back to the question, it seems really uncanny. Check the custom of Ghost Day, it says in the evening, people should yield the streets to dead ghosts, where they can’t dodge human and traffic. Then it could be risky for human that catch a ghost on body.

Anyways, we enjoyed an empty Shanghai night, not many people in the restaurant, shopping mall, street, also the massage shop, we were the only customers. My friends had no idea about the Guasha, so I had to do an example first, when the massagist started, few minutes later, they sneaked out. I thought they were totally freaked out by this abuse amusement.

When my Guasha was finished, they came in and were shocked by the bruise left on my back. After I assure it was no hurt, they decided to try. Thank goodness, the massagist was pretty good to treat them gently, which could be less functional but felt softer. After the Guasha, they obviously got more interested in other massage items, foot massage, foot shaving etc.

When we got out of the massage shop, it was already mid-night, along the street there were burning marks on the ground one by one, where people did the outside rites. Over the ghost night, everything turned back to quiet, I just feel a bit scared after smelling the burning paper.

The easiest solution in my childhood was take a pee into a corner, but that time was in countryside, now should just take a deep breath.