KOREAN LIBERATION . . .

You just are not a liberated Korean woman until you go to a Korean spa/sauna, shuck all your clothes and inhibitions and spend a day with a whole bunch of naked women of all ages and sizes.

Yes, my friends, that is how I spent my Saturday morning. Sigh. (The sad part was, I thought the whole entire time: "If I just had my laptop here, I could blog about this live!")

My mother has never been to a spa and has never received a massage. This, I consider to be a travesty. So when she heard of a Korean spa/sauna that had opened up in Joisey and expressed interest in going, I jumped at the chance to accompany her. Who am I to pass up a free massage? Little I knew ...

First of all, there's something about fresh-off-the-bi-haeng-gee (airplane) Koreans living in Joisey ... they speak a different kind of Korean than we suburban New York Koreans (Flushing Koreans also have a life and dialect of their own). Even Omma had a hard time communicating with the lady at the front desk. How much is a massage? Where do we go? Do we pay now or later? Where are we? The speed and bizarre lilt of the receptionist's voice and dialect was getting to me ... I was getting tense. Just show me where the masseuse awaits me.

We entered the women's locker room, and there it was: BAM! Naked women everywhere. And I'm not just talking "oh hi, I'm naked because I'm changing my clothes." I'm talking about full-on, "I'm 67 years old and saggy," "all I need is a towel on my head," "let me just stand here and do some calisthenics," "I'm having a conversation with three friends as if I'm fully dressed and sitting in Starbucks" naked. I must confess, my eyes bulged. What the ...

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm no prude. OK, I'm slightly prudish, but among my friends, I consider myself to be the most "free" with my body. Dad left the house? I'm walking around naked because it's just easier that way. There's a long line for the dressing rooms? Let's share one. Don't talk to me from the other side of the door -- come in to the bathroom. I'm only peeing, for crying out loud! When I'm with my girlfriends, I'm with my girlfriends, and I just can't bring myself to be shy in front of them about things like boobs and a vagina. We all have them; it's no novelty to me, know what I mean?

But this ... it was almost too much. I almost fled to our car, unable to decide whether to laugh or cry. Finally, I sucked it up and dropped my towel. There. Now I was naked, just like the 60 or so other naked women strolling about around me. Omma and I entered the main tub rooms: a whole series of showers and a steam room lined the side walls, a body scrub (not at all like the wussy American spa body scrubs, no!) section lay along the back wall, and three hot tubs, each filled with a different formula or herb stood along the front wall. I got in, partly because I had no idea what else to do. My alternative was to stand there and look at naked women, most of whom were over the age of fifty. No, I think I'll get in the hot tub, lay my head back and close my eyes, thank you.

Ten minutes passed before I had to head upstairs for my massage. Readers, let's call this MY BIGGEST MISTAKE EVER. Alright, not ever, but pretty damn close. Greeted by a young diminutive Korean woman, I internally scoffed "how could this little wisp of a thing give me the quality of deep tissue massage I am accustomed to and enjoy?" Five minutes later, my massage snobbery came back to bite me in the ass. HARD.

There's deep tissue massage, and then there's just straight up pain. The latter is inflicted by "massaging" someone with JUST YOUR THUMBS. Wtf?! The masseuse climbed all over me and the massage table, nearly cutting off my airpipe everytime she pressed hard on my body, driving my throat into the table. She used her thumbs for everything, and seemed not to know the philosophy of gradual pressure. It was all pain, all the time. I tried my best to breathe through my nose and relax -- my tense muscles were making the massage more and more painful. She even dug her thumbs into the top of my head to relieve ... I don't know what. I just couldn't stop worrying that she was going to reverse the fusion of my skull bones and create another soft spot. Finally, I flinched. The masseuse told me my muscles were tense. NO KIDDING. THAT'S BECAUSE YOU ARE SLOWLY KILLING ME!!!! After informing her several times, to no avail, to lighten up, I just succumbed to the slow death, figuring I can just go for another massage elsewhere to reverse the tension cause by this one.

Sadly, that wasn't the worst part of the massage. Truly, the greatest agony stemmed from the fact that the masseuse was a talker.
"Are you a student?" No.
"Are you married?" No.
"Are you from New Jersey?" No.
"Is this your first time here?" Yes.
"Is this your first massage?" No, but certainly my least pleasant.
"Do you need a massage because you are injured somewhere?" No, but I will.
"Did you come alone?" No.
"The back of your head is very large." Thank you. I think.
"Do you exercise regularly?" Yes.
"Have you been in the tubs already?" Yes.
"Your hands are so small and dainty." Thank you. I think.
And on and on and on. I couldn't decide what hurt more: my ears or my body.

When my sixty minutes were up, I fled like the wind and sought refuge once more in the hot bath tubs. By now, I was feeling free and walking proudly naked as well. And this is when it dawned on me: this place was pretty awesome, despite the sadistic thumb-y masseuse. Where else and how often will you find a bunch of women, teenagers to little old grandmothers, being free to be naked in front of each other? No one cared about saggy boobs, boobs that weren't big enough, boobs that were too big. No one cared about cellulite, muscle tone, lack of muscle tone. No one cared about the woman who came in with only one arm, or the woman with the cleft palate, or the woman with burn scars on her back, or the woman with one breast. No one cared about long hair, short hair, designer clothing, fancy perfume, expensive jewelry, chic makeup. All they cared about was hanging out, chatting with each other, relaxing, indulging, spending a day away from the outside. All I cared about was erasing the memory of the massage.

It was pretty cool, this realization. At the end of our morning there, I even found myself dreading putting my clothes back on. A bra and panties, a shirt, pants, shoes ... they all seemed so constricting and oppressive after several hours of just being ME. I'll be back ... probably again with my mom. I think the whole "let's be naked" thing might be a hard sell for most of my girlfriends. But just imagine ... freedom!