Malaysian Massage.

Everyplace I ever go I try the local massage. In fact, when Ela K. was asked to write a series of magazine articles on traditional massages of the world, she chose me as her Designated Expert and I was even able to direct her to bizarre and different therapies she had never heard of.

Traditional massages are amazing. I've often thought of doing a PhD thesis on the subject because more than anything else I've come across they tell the story of human migration.  Truly, they simply reek of social history. Like, I knew, from the moment I had a Tanka massage, that this was the source of Polynesian massage; they share so many of the same moves, each is like a Chinese Whispers version of each other. I thought "Mothers passed this down to their kids a long, long time ago." so wasn't at all surprised when DNA tests revealed that the Polynesians descended from Tanka mothers, between five and six thousand years ago. 

And there's the harsh and brutal Cambodian massage sharing all the same basic moves as the sweet and gentle Thai massage; so different yet so alike I guessed - and confirmed later - that Thai massage descended from enslaved Cambodian masseuses, taken captive in a war and so, in their new environment, too scared to inflict the pain they usually did.

And so, given my abiding interest and being in Malaysia, I had to try what they had on offer. Terepi Ikan, which I've already told you about, was mighty interesting and different, but as for the rest, mmmmhmm ...

I'm sorry if I'm wronging Malaysia here but I think they don't have traditional massage.

When I was a child, my father would only read to me if I rubbed his back, and, sincerely, when I got those series of massages around KL, I really felt I should be reading aloud to the masseuse.  It was truly that ho hum and nothing!

Is this true?  That Malaysia doesn't have massage?  Or did I just stumble upon a series of particularly bad and ill-informed folk who had no training and no idea of what they were doing?

If there are Malaysians out there who know better, please do let me know. You may even get a mention and thank you in my "One-Day" PhD thesis.