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Taiwan Day 8 Clinic Day

Oh. My. God. How come I have only just discovered Mo Mos sell jelly beans? Last

day of the 15 day course and only now have I noticed them. Little licorice babies

Come To Mumma!

Its the eighth day of teaching and Clinic Day. The therapists worked hard all day

assessing and treating clients who arrived describing a range of hobbies and all kinds

of musculoskeletal ailments, including two clients who practice taekwondo, two

basketball players, a ballet dancer, two social dancers, two women who lovecooking (and had overuse injuries as a result), yoga enthusiasts, two doctors, a

badminton player, and many with office based occupations and associated disorders.

After each of the clinic sessions we discussed the clients main problem and the

treatment solutions each therapist had implemented. We saw the usual mix of

ailments: supraspinatus tendinopathies, adhesive capsulitis, anterior knee pain, lowback pain, thoracic pain originating from hypermobility, two cases of elbow pain,

hamstring and calf pain, and of course, neck pain. The students seemed to get a great

deal from the day and although we were all getting tired, remained focused and

attentive. It was rewarding to see the therapists putting into practice all that they had

learnt. I was intrigued to observe them implementing strapping and taping, giving it ago to see whether it would work for some of the clients. With a little help they

successfully strapped for an internally rotated shoulder, a kyphotic posture, a

hypermobile knee joint and an AC joint displacement. I was very impressed.

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Victoria and I had lunch together today, downstairs in the food hall. She ordered

something spicy which came in a steaming pot. I ordered Thai coconut curry. Yoo

want get married again? she asked in her matter-of-fact way. My advice? You wear

different clothes. Not this top, she said, pointing to my sweatshirt. Yoo wearsomething different. Yes miss.

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We continued with clinic sessions after lunch. At the end, students requested to havetheir photos taken with me and I stood dutifully, smiling in front of the flipchart and

with the skeleton. We finally wrapped everything up at 7.30pm and the students

packed up their towels and oils and began their journeys home, back to their different

parts of Taiwan. By December they will have been studying and practicing sports

massage for 11 months. They have their exams in December and will submit all of

their coursework, case studies and project, all of which is being translated to be by

Victoria, at the end of the year. The plan is to award the students their Diplomas to

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coincide with Chinese New Year, a suitable time to be rewarded for so much hard

work.

At the end of the day I see workmen and women trudging home dressed head to toe in

their orange boiler suits, their clothes plastered with dried beige mud from digging

drains all day, hard hats in hand, mouth masks at their necks. Walking back to myhotel I looked for the last time at the plastic shoes for sale in the windows of Mo Mos.(Not much point wearing leather when it rains so much.) Drag Queen heaven.

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Victoria accompanied me. She was listless, as was I, and she was suddenly overcome

with exhaustion, come down from being on an adrenalin high all week and in high

demand as an interpreter. She seemed out of sorts. I said it may be the result of being

in a room all day of so many different energies, those of the therapists and of theclients, plus the fact that it was the end of a very long week, and the last time we

would be together. Yoo want go eat? she asked kindly, offering to be a host right

til the last. She was on her last legs and leaning against the window of the Brother

Hotel. I declined. I was actually ok but then Im used to standing up all day, used to

teaching, used to answering questions. And I only have to do it in one language. So

we hugged and parted and she hailed a cab home.

Back in my room I packed, counted my remaining money and looked again at all of

my gifts. I was tired, yet sad to be leaving. Everyone here is very generous of spirit. I

will miss Victoria. I will miss being able to walk out at night wearing just a t-shirt.

(Even if it is two sizes too small). I will miss the music selections at breakfast,(Rachmaninoff one day, ragtime jazz the next). I will miss the stories in the

Taiwanese Times. On Saturday, for example, the paper reported how researchers have

successfully grown Kyoho grapes, each grape weighing between 9 and 14grams with

a sweetness at high as 18 brix (the unit used to measure sweetness in an aqueous

solution). Or that of Taipei-based publishers Star East Publications, who intend topublishFifty Shades of Greywho have high hopes for sales of foreign erotic books.

Fanny Yang, Star Eastschief editor, declined to reveal how much her company had

paid for the right. Or even the article revealing that 1,200 Taiwanese farmers are

about to attempt to break the Guinness Word record for simultaneously transplanting

rice seedlings on a plot of land. Only in Taiwan.

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