On Thursday morning Aiden was on a go-slow. He has a couple of strategies. One involves not getting out of bed; it's effective because he sleeps in the top bunk in their tiny room - so you can't really get up there (if you're my size) and drag him out. So you have to beg and plead a bit, which is, of course, what he wants. One variation of this go-slow is that he eventually relents by saying that he'll only get up if I lift him out of bed. This involves me reaching up to the top bunk and him sort of plopping himself down on my upstreched hands. All fine three years ago, but now he weighs well north of 30kg's, and it's a little tougher on my rapidly aging body. On this particular day he launches himself out, and in the process of catching him, I twist my back in some strange way. It's uncomfortable, but I dont think too much of it, and I go for my early morning mountain run - a 6 and a half km route. By the time I get to the end of the run, my back is really uncomfortable. By lunchtime that day, I'm trying out all sorts of new positions in my office chair, attempting to avoid stabs of pain, and fantasising about going home so that I can get Ange to give it a rub or something. When I do get home this happens, I head off to bed, but it's the same nighmare the next day (I have to miss my row - which I hate - because it puts me in the zone for the day), and on Friday night Ange says "Why dont you let me take you to Master Yau tomorrow morning?"
Now Master Yau is Ange's Chinese Bonesetter - I suppose in some way a type of chiropractor - but of course a 5000 years of history and no regulation mystical eastern one. We've had a few arguments over the years about Master Yau, who Ange swears by, along with the couple of other people I know who've been to him. I'm sceptical. I just cant see why empiricism should not be applied to everything. So I tend to snort when I hear the stories about Master Yau (who in folklore, is only one step shy of walking on water) though I concede too that he has visibly helped Ange, who has a very dodgy back. And bear in mind I'm in agony - so come Saturday morning, it's either 1) a hospital, 2) a physiotherapist - which means going to the doctor, then going to HK Island, or 3) Master Yau - because doing nothing is just not an option.
Furthermore, going to Master Yau, who operates out of the very Triad-flavoured Nam Wai villiage, is two thirds of the way to Sai Kung - where I know I can also get a fistfull of 100mg Voltaren to gobble - so Master Yau it is.
You will appreciate my trepidation, if you consider for a moment Master Yau's waiting room, pictured above. You will of course note the questionable lighting, and the shipping crate building in the background. You may also notice the China plated CLS63 AMG - and it needs to be said, there was a lot of flashy machinery parked around; the well-to-do of southern China seemed to be well acquainted with his services - never a bad sign.
The woman who went in before me could be heard wailing inside, loudly. It reminded me immediately of the maternity ward, and I was about that nervous.
Eventually it was my turn to go into his little room, which is spartan, with one sort of bed-table thing, a shelf, a Leonardo looking picture of a man on the wall, with various things pointed out in Chinese writing, and some suspicious shoe-horn looking devices.
"What's wrong with you?" he asks, accusingly, with the emphasis on the you.
"I've hurt my back" I say, "sort of up here in the middle".
He looks at me deadpan.
"Lie down on the bed face down" he says, pointing at the bed.
So I do. And I'm not sure what I'm expecting (other than pain, from Ange's muted warnings, and the screams of the woman before me) - but I suppose at least some sort of
let's check you out first approach. None of that. I feel like some crazed tiger has leapt on me - Master Yau might well be in his 70's, but he has absolute hands of steel, and he literally just tore into my back - gave me a complete bloody savaging - all the while commanding me to "blowed out, blowed out!" - which I was doing furiously as it was the only thing that would stop me screaming out in pain, or for help. About two minutes into this he flips me over, and starts yanking my legs furiously - and I'm talking with real violence here - and then comes lunging up with his dagger-spade-steel hands at my sternum - and gives me a mauling on the front to match the one I've endured on the back. Then I'm commanded to sit on a plastic stool which he has produced, and hold my hands around my head in this way and that (I was only too pleased to do this - something comforting in covering your head when your'e being attacked) while he yanked my neck and back this way and that, making my spine give off the most alarming sounds - and then just as quickly as it started it was over.
"OK, done" he says; "you feel better now (?)" - I think it was a question, but maybe just a declaration. I was not going to say anything other than yes - pay HK$400 and walk out. My oath.
And then the part that really does my head in, is that my back feels fine - immediately (maybe it realises the alternative is going back?). And this morning - very carefully to begin with - but later not at all - I row for forty five minutes - tonight, a short while ago I gymned. And while my back has some pretty appalling bruises (like big purple nasty bruises) and my sternum feels like I've been punched very hard, a number of times - it is undoubtedly also still fine. Go figure.
