{"id":74,"date":"2007-05-09T04:31:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-08T20:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stevepeer.net\/wordpress\/?p=78"},"modified":"2007-05-09T04:31:00","modified_gmt":"2007-05-08T20:31:00","slug":"hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Massage: Hungry Mice and Sadistic Hands"},"content":{"rendered":"

A little mouse crawled innocently up my spine. Or, that\u2019s what it felt like one morning last week. I knew a headache, a major one, was in my future. Three or four times a year I get a headache that makes me wish for very hard drugs.<\/p>\n

\"mouse.jpg\"<\/p>\n

After the first twinges, the initial steps of that evil mouse, I went back to bed. Most days I go to the office at 9 am but decided to wait until 1 pm, when the rest of the staff arrives. A short nap might kill the mouse. My co-workers and the telephone had other plans. The nap was short lived.<\/p>\n

By noon the mouse had started to gnaw on my brainstem. I had no over-the-counter headache remedies. The power was off and I could hear two men hitting the break box at the end of the hall with hammers. I showered in the dark and popped a Midol for the Acetaminophen, which caused problems later when my wife needed the pills for their intended purpose and could not find them.<\/p>\n

By two o\u2019clock the mouse had recruited a few friends and they extended their path of destruction, slam-dancing from my neck to temples. I drank coffee, hoping the caffeine might urge the Midol to sedate the mice. No dice.<\/p>\n

At 4 pm I looked at the letter opener on my desk and wondered if it was sharp enough to remove my head from my body, and if I was strong enough to accomplish such a task in a single blow.<\/p>\n

I took drastic action at 5 pm and asked a co-worker for assistance. Carrie\u2019s mother is a Chinese doctor, of sorts. I don\u2019t know what this means, as my wife refers to the pharmacist as a doctor. The mother, Ayi (Aunt in Chinese, the common form of address for an older woman) had cured a stubborn kink in my neck a few months before with a vigorous massage.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not into sadomasochism, but I reveled in the heavy-handed beating she gave my neck and scalp. The mice were afraid of those powerful hands and retreated. After 50 minutes of benevolent torture they chewed meekly on my temples. I decided they could snack, it was only fair; they were hungry after dancing most of the day.<\/p>\n

Back in the office I made sure none of my charges, students or teachers, had caused any great problems in my absence. I greeted my former Grade 1 class and walked with them, hand-in-hand, to their room. Unconditional love can remove pain, and stun mice, for a short time.<\/p>\n

Sporting a bruised neck, thanks to Ayi, I packed up my laptop and called it a day, 30 minutes before the day was officially over. At home I watched Alton Brown before falling asleep without dreams. The mice went away during my nocturnal respite, scared of another beating from Ayi.<\/p>\n

Photo by Dawn M Turner<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chinese Massage is painful. I\u2019m not into sadomasochism, but I reveled in the heavy-handed beating she gave my neck and scalp. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":73,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[28,35,45,19],"tags":[379,672,835],"class_list":["post-74","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-china","category-culture","category-humour","category-travel","tag-little-mouse","tag-o-clock","tag-slam-dancing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nChina Massage | Massage in Shenzhen<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Chinese Massage is painful. I\u2019m not into sadomasochism, but I reveled in the heavy-handed beating she gave my neck and scalp.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"China Massage | Massage in Shenzhen\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Chinese Massage is painful. I\u2019m not into sadomasochism, but I reveled in the heavy-handed beating she gave my neck and scalp.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Asian Ramblings Archive\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-05-08T20:31:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/05\/mouse.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"300\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Stevo\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Stevo\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Stevo\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/70251aaadfa26e353fb82e306420fffc\"},\"headline\":\"Chinese Massage: Hungry Mice and Sadistic Hands\",\"datePublished\":\"2007-05-08T20:31:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2007-05-08T20:31:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands\/\"},\"wordCount\":491,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/5c31e8fe1c93b1242d5e80b539436e99\"},\"keywords\":[\"little mouse\",\"o clock\",\"slam dancing\"],\"articleSection\":[\"China\",\"Culture\",\"Humour\",\"Travel\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands\/\",\"name\":\"China Massage | Massage in Shenzhen\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2007-05-08T20:31:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2007-05-08T20:31:00+00:00\",\"description\":\"Chinese Massage is painful. I\u2019m not into sadomasochism, but I reveled in the heavy-handed beating she gave my neck and scalp.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Chinese Massage: Hungry Mice and Sadistic Hands\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Asian Ramblings Archive\",\"description\":\"Expat Tales and Adventures\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/5c31e8fe1c93b1242d5e80b539436e99\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":[\"Person\",\"Organization\"],\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/5c31e8fe1c93b1242d5e80b539436e99\",\"name\":\"Stevo\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a34a2e8f5ff3088ac6ab66af1fc4488bbf4fbb631c29d081b2db74a0e033cc95?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a34a2e8f5ff3088ac6ab66af1fc4488bbf4fbb631c29d081b2db74a0e033cc95?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Stevo\"},\"logo\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/70251aaadfa26e353fb82e306420fffc\",\"name\":\"Stevo\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fe528d8d97b2a19cb8ac3d6dc4db6d1688098ab3df7c85f7c1f2e404b4ccb1a9?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fe528d8d97b2a19cb8ac3d6dc4db6d1688098ab3df7c85f7c1f2e404b4ccb1a9?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Stevo\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"China Massage | Massage in Shenzhen","description":"Chinese Massage is painful. I\u2019m not into sadomasochism, but I reveled in the heavy-handed beating she gave my neck and scalp.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"China Massage | Massage in Shenzhen","og_description":"Chinese Massage is painful. I\u2019m not into sadomasochism, but I reveled in the heavy-handed beating she gave my neck and scalp.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands\/","og_site_name":"Asian Ramblings Archive","article_published_time":"2007-05-08T20:31:00+00:00","og_image":[{"width":300,"height":200,"url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/05\/mouse.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Stevo","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Stevo","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands\/"},"author":{"name":"Stevo","@id":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/70251aaadfa26e353fb82e306420fffc"},"headline":"Chinese Massage: Hungry Mice and Sadistic Hands","datePublished":"2007-05-08T20:31:00+00:00","dateModified":"2007-05-08T20:31:00+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands\/"},"wordCount":491,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/5c31e8fe1c93b1242d5e80b539436e99"},"keywords":["little mouse","o clock","slam dancing"],"articleSection":["China","Culture","Humour","Travel"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands\/","url":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands\/","name":"China Massage | Massage in Shenzhen","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-05-08T20:31:00+00:00","dateModified":"2007-05-08T20:31:00+00:00","description":"Chinese Massage is painful. I\u2019m not into sadomasochism, but I reveled in the heavy-handed beating she gave my neck and scalp.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/hungry-mice-and-sadistic-hands\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Chinese Massage: Hungry Mice and Sadistic Hands"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/","name":"Asian Ramblings Archive","description":"Expat Tales and Adventures","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/5c31e8fe1c93b1242d5e80b539436e99"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":["Person","Organization"],"@id":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/5c31e8fe1c93b1242d5e80b539436e99","name":"Stevo","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a34a2e8f5ff3088ac6ab66af1fc4488bbf4fbb631c29d081b2db74a0e033cc95?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a34a2e8f5ff3088ac6ab66af1fc4488bbf4fbb631c29d081b2db74a0e033cc95?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Stevo"},"logo":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/70251aaadfa26e353fb82e306420fffc","name":"Stevo","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fe528d8d97b2a19cb8ac3d6dc4db6d1688098ab3df7c85f7c1f2e404b4ccb1a9?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fe528d8d97b2a19cb8ac3d6dc4db6d1688098ab3df7c85f7c1f2e404b4ccb1a9?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Stevo"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog"]}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/05\/mouse.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stevepeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}