This afternoon found me sitting in my classmate's living room. He, also a foreigner, was complaining about pain in his lower back. "There is a blind massage shop over on DaWan", I said. For whatever reason, blind people are famous for their massage abilities here. The shops are usually clean, reasonably priced, and lack the reputation of certain questionable massage parlors or beauty salons conspicuously absent of any scissors or blow-dryers. After a fairly long walk, we arrived at the shop. Entering we found two men in white coats, both supposedly blind, in a very small room with a chair, two massage tables and a few anatomy posters on the wall. One man was working on the knot of a customer sprawled on a table. The other man stood and greeted us. "How much for an hour massage?", I asked. Admittedly my Chinese is still a bit lacking and I didn't fully understand his response. All I knew was that my friend immediately said, "Bah!" as he waved his hand and turned to leave. Disliking not understanding, I asked again. "50RMB for local people, 70RMB for foreigners", was his reply.
Keep in mind, living abroad often requires letting go of certain habits or ideas to which we might be accustomed. Prices based on nationality seemed to ruffle my fearthers, however. How many times have we read those disclaimers on forms and applications? "We do not discriminate based on race, religions, ethnicity or nationality." Still not fully believing I asked, "How is that possible?". The two men replied very matter-of-factly that locals are 50RMB and foriengers are 70 because they are fat. Because they are fatter and bigger they take more time and energy to finish. (In their defense, they are in a neighborhood with a huge Russian/Central Asian population and I've seen my share of hefty folks walking around.) Without missing a beat my friend said, with equal matter-of-factness, "Not all foreigners are fat. In fact, you're pretty fat yourself", and turned toward the door. Honestly, the man was a bit portly, though I don't know if I would have pointed that out.
This situation shouldn't have come as a surprise. Price based on nationality can be found at various parks and scenic spots. It doesn't make sense to me but many things here don't. There are plenty of things I could find at which to be annoyed; this one just makes me chuckle. Sure in my mind, if it takes longer to do what they just charge by time, not what country is printed on your ID. In their mind, a larger majority of their hefty customers are foreigners and they feel more tired after massaging them. So. Charge more, right? In the grand scheme of things its not a big deal ....and it gave me an idea for a blog post. Now did they get my 70RMB? Well, no. But they did gain international noteriety by being featured on my blog, right?