I rushed towards the yoga room but open realizing that the class had already begun paused by the door. Of course, my abrupt stop coupled with my lack of grace made me stub my toe; it took all of my inner-postive-karma-energy-ying-and-yang to keep from shouting out a string of vulgarities.
I took a deep breathe and tip-toed into the classroom, exhaling only once I was seated cross-legged in the back room. The studio was fairly large with about 20 mats distributed throughout the room. A large mirror served as the main wall and the air was quite thick with the lingering scent of students past.
I closed my eyes and smiled, ready to relish the Yoga Flow class. The teacher began to speak but the sounds were foreign to me. She continued in Mandarin and beads of sweat began to collect on my upper lip as I considering all my options for escape. I then thought, ‘when in China do as the Chinese’ and began to copy the teacher’s postures and flow.
There are few foreigners in the class and the Chinese are urban women who can afford to pay the inflated rate charged by the studio. Yoga has become trendy in Shanghai and the studios serve as high-end and chic coffee houses. The traditional organic-holistic-spiritual components derived from a yoga practice have been replaced with a desire to burn a few calories while prancing about in low-cut-skin-tight-coordinated-outfits-imported-from-Paris. I observed the students around me and was amazed by their tiny structure composed of tiny-teeny-bitsy bones. Most of the women did not have even a subtle outline of a potential blossoming breast and the ones who did had clearly undergone an operation. One woman in particular must have only recently had surgery to enhance her breast size since she struggled to keep her tiny frame from toppling forward as she positioned from one sequence to the next. I gigled when realizing that, if one of her fake breasts slipped out of its confined area, she would not even realize.
25 years ago the ban on cosmetic surgery was removed but in 2006, the government banned cosmetic surgery advertising on television after hundreds of women were maimed by unsafe implants. The ‘magic gel’ used in the implants leaked into the body and even caused flesh to rot; the substance is banned in the West. Um, was regulating the industry not an option? Nevertheless, they also banned the production of counterfeit watches and purses but vendors continue to stand on street corners aggressively marketing their wares, grabbing onto the elbows of people passing by and shaking their plastic leaflets dotted with photos of the merchandise. Advertising for surgical breast enhancement thrives but it is mostly relegated to the videos playing in the taxi head rests. Less invasive treatments are found in spas. For example, this is one treatment I recently saw: Bust Treatment; For sagging of mastatrophy, after acupuncture pint massage, it will help nursing the mammary gland to be in perfect and solid condition, and to be effective for chest organization. Including the mammary gland element biochemistry extract phosphorous resin sac, helps with circulation and enhance birth solid chest forms, may also eliminate obular hyperplasia and prevent cancer. Ahh, and another office called itself a "Breast Maintenance Center."
Enough said.
After class, I passed by a group of Western women gathered in the dressing room. Since they were chirping away quite loudly, it was impossible not to overhear their conversation. And once I realized that it was interesting, I did not rush to apply my makeup and leave. However, the woman next to me began to blow dry her hair with intense ferocity and I no could no longer hear which-husband-slept-with-which-neighbor-and-who-bought-a-new-car-and-who-had-a-driver-or-nanny-who-was-lazy. I packed up my things and left since the only other option was to watch as the Chinese women ran around naked, had conversations with one another naked, cut their toenails naked, used the blowdryer to dry un-conventional parts of the body naked, and engaged in a series of other doing VERY private things to themselves in a very public space.
Enough said.
After class, I passed by a group of Western women gathered in the dressing room. Since they were chirping away quite loudly, it was impossible not to overhear their conversation. And once I realized that it was interesting, I did not rush to apply my makeup and leave. However, the woman next to me began to blow dry her hair with intense ferocity and I no could no longer hear which-husband-slept-with-which-neighbor-and-who-bought-a-new-car-and-who-had-a-driver-or-nanny-who-was-lazy. I packed up my things and left since the only other option was to watch as the Chinese women ran around naked, had conversations with one another naked, cut their toenails naked, used the blowdryer to dry un-conventional parts of the body naked, and engaged in a series of other doing VERY private things to themselves in a very public space.
After class, I passed by a group of Western women gathered in the dressing room. Since they were chirping away quite loudly, it was impossible not to overhear their conversation. And once I realized that it was interesting, I did not rush to apply my makeup and leave. However, the woman next to me began to blow dry her hair with intense ferocity and I no could no longer hear which-husband-slept-with-which-neighbor-and-who-bought-a-new-car-and-who-had-a-driver-or-nanny-who-was-lazy. I packed up my things and left since the only other option was to watch as the Chinese women ran around naked, had conversations with one another naked, cut their toenails naked, used the blowdryer to dry un-conventional parts of the body naked, and engaged in a series of other doing VERY private things to themselves in a very public space.
The teacher speaks with a posh British accent, dreadfully expensive highlights, and wears blacks tights and a t-shirt which has been purposefully torn by its certainly-fabulous-designer. The hum of her words put me in somewhat of a trance and I laughed as I thought of the teacher in the Snoopy cartoon who was never seen but only heard saying blah-blah-blah-blah.
There is a fascination with plastic surgery in China, especially with respect to the widening of the eyes or the enhancement of the breasts. Surgery is offered as the main prize on many mainstream gameshows and as a birthday present for an aging wife. Women tend to be open about the fact that they had surgery but then again, women in China tend to be very open with everything associated with their bodies. This was further exhibited when the women took the liberty to release from 'all-ends' when the teacher said 'Exhale.'
No comments:
Post a Comment