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Thai Massage - maybe?

Some friends got me a gift certificate to a Thai massage place for my birthday. They figured I might enjoy Thai bodywork, which is an admixture of massage, Twister, yoga, and wrestling. I waited until after the holidays and finally made an appointment for my massage last week.

The brochure which came with my gift certificate listed three massage options: Traditional Thai Yoga Bodywork ($139 for 90 minutes), Signature, which is described as a blend of Eastern and Western techniques (also $139), and Signature Deluxe, which is Signature plus hot oil ($140). When I called to make my reservation the woman with whom I spoke insisted that there were only two options: Traditional Thai and hot oil. She asked the amount of my gift certificate and when I told her "$139" she said, "oh, that's the amount for Traditional Thai - that's what I'll put you down for". There was a bit of a language barrier in our conversation and I just couldn't get across to her the ideas that (a) I wanted to understand my options before choosing one, and (b) if appropriate I would come up with the one dollar to cover the difference between my gift certificate value and the cost of the Signature Deluxe. Eventually I gave up and just accepted her choice of the Traditional Thai, since that option was interesting to me anyway.

It was cold and rainy the day of my massage, but I was greeted warmly when I showed up. The first thing they have you do is change into these funky Thai pajamas. Then they give you a foot bath - not really my thing, but not a negative, except that it was really hot. As I soaked I told Tina, my masseuse, that this was my first time there and I didn't really know what to expect. She looked surprised, saying that the reservation specifically asked for her. I said no, unless my friends who got me the gift certificate somehow specified it - but it was hard to see how that would have worked, since when I made the reservation I wasn't asked for any sort of gift certificate number or other identifier. But it didn't matter - fate had brought the two of us together.

In my Thai massage PJ's

Tina asked me what I wanted her to work on, and in reply I said that I didn't really have any specific issues. She then asked, "You want relaxing?", to which I answered yes - who doesn't like relaxation? This turned out to be a big mistake, since once she heard I was interested in relaxation she made up her mind that the hot oil massage was what I wanted, a position from which she could not be dissuaded. As with when I made my reservation, I tried to explain to her that I wanted to better understand my options before deciding, but everything I said was met with an identical response that hot oil was what I wanted. I have experienced this kind of stonewalling before - mostly from people from other cultures. I have no basis for saying this other than my own experience, but I think Americans' idea of negotiation (current politics notwithstanding) is for both sides to state their opening positions then immediately begin to look for common ground, whereas in some other cultures the approach seems to be to stick to your initial bid for as many iterations as possible, hoping to get the other party to concede first. I experienced this in the past when I shopped in Itaewon in Seoul, and again here - no matter what I said, Tina would repeat the exact same response that what I wanted was a hot oil massage. And she indeed won the negotiation - after a few laps of this I shrugged and agreed to the hot oil massage.

In short, the massage itself was quite enjoyable and, dare I say, relaxing. It was closer to a Western massage than I had been expecting: a little rougher, with use of elbows and such, but none of the walk on you and twist you like Gumby stuff I had been anticipating. I did very much enjoy it. And I got a $140 massage for only $139 - score!

I might go back some time to experience the actual Thai Bodywork massage. If I do, maybe I'll even ask specifically for Tina.


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