Bajaj posted:

Ayurveda stuff

MetaJew posted:

My GF, who came to the US from Beijing when she was a child, has had some acne flair up after the pharmacy+health insurance changed the generic BC she was getting.

This has resulted in her mother insisting she see a local TCM doctor. She refused, but eventually her mother called the "doctor", made some appointment, and then said she would pay for it. So, to prevent an argument she goes along with it.

Cut to the consultation, the TCM doc "measures her pulse" and tells her that "she has a lot of heat" in her abdomen that needs to be "cooled down". He then prescribes her a poo poo ton of herbal supplements to take, at an outrageous volume. Two bottles she's supposed to take 10 pills each, after each meal, and another bottle of pills which he says he makes himself, she was supposed to take 5-10 after each meal. I think she was told, ultimately to take something like 40-50 of these pills a day.

After looking at the bottles, and talking to her mom, we find that they are all laxatives of some form or another.

Honestly I was more worried that he was going to somehow give her antibiotics and muscle relaxers, based on what I've read in this thread.

Bajaj posted:

Chinese men hate her legs and she feels like a freak. She had thighs and a good butt, but those two things don't really exist in southern China. Even the women scoff at photos of the effects of squats on the legs and butt, and call it all "fat." A girl can go to a gym for years, but the last thing she'll do is pick up anything with weight.

HAT FETISH posted:

That said you still see combination TCM herbs/imported spirits shops in big shopping malls here. Hennessy and rhino dick good for healthy

LentThem posted:

I think I mentioned it in the thread before, but the ideal female in china has a body like ginger root (and a face like grey alien)

peanut posted:

The TCM pill for an upset stomach is 5-6 little brown herb spheres that smell like rotten bbq sauce. They didn't make me less nauseous (；゜∀゜)

ntan1 posted:

Except those brown spheres actually worked significantly better than pepto bismol or anything else over the counter in the US. 2 of them were enough to get rid of any major upset stomach.

The only problem was that some Japanese researcher ended up finding that they had the possibility of increasing the risk of certain cancers/heart issues so people stopped using them...

Darkest Auer posted:

Indian TCM sounds exactly as bad as Chinese TCM

Slim Jim Pickens posted:

afaik they just found carcinogenic medicinal stuff in them when they got tested somewhere. Those type of stomachache remedies work in a brutish way where it's meant to physically gunk up your gut walls and keep it apart from irritants, pepto bismol is a weird metal salt that will leave a shiny solid behind if you blow torch it for example.

Coolguye posted:

the crazy thing here is that in the traditional interpretation of TCM biological heat, that's a correct diagnosis, and the course of action i've seen prescribed for that most often (temporary change of diet away from 'heat-inducing' foods - in "lives on this planet" terms, dairy and oils) is in fact what many dermatologists will tell you to do while your body adjusts to the new inputs. this will generally calm down your body's tendency to produce oils and make it easier to keep pores unclogged and clean.

McGavin posted:

That's ginseng, not ginger.

Bajaj posted:

It really calls for a more balanced diet based on the birth type you fall into.

Bajaj posted:

Gyms are a dime-a-dozen as the middle-class shifts from obese to less-obese. Gyms are of all varieties, from hole-in-the-wall free-weight gyms (one I went to look at was 500 rupees, or $8 USD per year), to super fancy ones with all-imported stuff and all sorts of fitness classes. Women are very under-represented in the gyms though, and that's probably due to feeling too weird being surrounded by a ton of young guys. The gyms I've been to have very strict policies about NO PHONE, probably because of guys taking photos. The guys all arm exercises. Many Indian men have those itty-bitty genetically scrawny calves that are the size of most people's wrists, and tend to skip leg day always. One guy in my gym is only biceps and nothing else. He just pumps his 'ceps and leaves, and it's the only part of him that isn't scrawny.
Still, I see arms here or guys with muscles every single day, and in ways that I only saw once or twice in my entire year in China. It might be the whole "beans and milk products" at every meal thing, but without following all that strict TCM garbage and Chinese diet or the gorging on meat, Indians put on muscle way better than Chinese. The owner of my gym is pure veg, like many of his clients, and just eats tons of milk and beans. The dude is huge without being fat, and his arms are as big as my head.

quote:

I moved to China a few weeks ago and this happened last week.

I was out and about with another international teacher I met a few days earlier. As we were walking towards the bar we bar we had planned on visiting, I had an emergency. I had to take a poo poo. Desperately. I calmly suggested to her that we find a bathroom soon while I on the inside was squirming in pain knowing this diarrhea that was about to happen wasn’t going to be any fun.

We eventually find a restroom and I am relieved to finally take this glorious poo poo. I am hoping there will be one western style toilet, but there are only squatty pottys. I bust the door open to one of them and realize that there is no toilet paper in the stall. I search frantically, but find none. I take a few deep breaths and tell myself: “you got this. Just hold it.” I walk back out and about 10 steps out I rush back as I’m literally about to poo poo myself. At this point I can think of two options:

1. poo poo myself.

2. Take a dump in the squatty potty and use the toilet paper in the trash can (since you’re not supposed to flush down toilet paper) which other dudes have used God knows how many minutes before my arrival.

I settled for option 2. In addition, there was no soap to wash my hands with afterwards. It was hard trying not to gag for the remainder of the evening.

TL;DR Re-used used toilet paper and now always bring tp with me

big time bisexual posted:

ladron posted:

I have personally wiped my rear end with a sock after an emergency dumping in Korea

nickmeister posted:

Has anyone been peaked at taking a piss at the urinal?

angel opportunity posted:

My first bathroom experience in china was a real shocker. My wife (gf at the time) and I landed in Beijing, then we took a bus from Beijing to her hometown. It was a six-hour bus ride, and they stopped halfway at a restaurant that was godawful and clearly paid the busses to go there. There was a giant pile of loving garbage right in front of the door, over six feet high of just loving garbage.

Anyway, I had to piss and followed the Chinese guys toward the bathroom. I get into the bathroom and it was the worst smell I'd ever experienced in my life thus far. I look over and I see that it's the squat toilets (which I'd expected and was prepared for) but I wasn't prepared for the squat toilets having no dividers of any kind. Just holes all over the place in what felt more like a shed than a building, and I see like 9 Chinese guys just dropping their pants, squatting, and making GBS threads within a few seconds of going down. I hear all these gross making GBS threads sounds and guys moaning as they poo poo. Some start lighting up cigarettes as they poo poo. It just blew me away how loving godawful it smelled and how inhuman it felt. There's something about making GBS threads privately or having some semblance of humility that elevates humans beyond animals, and the way these dudes were just like letting it rip into holes in the ground was totally inhuman.

Luckily I just had to piss, so I did it while avoiding breathing or inhaling, and I got out as soon as possible.

Fleta Mcgurn posted:

I used a receipt once.

Darkest Auer posted:

Collective making GBS threads sheds sound like 100% authentic relics from the Cultural Revolution era.

Fleta Mcgurn posted:

Oh, my.

angel opportunity posted:

Cheng Guang knew he had to poo poo, but it wasn't time yet. He clenched his cheeks as he shouted down the mineshaft in completely unintelligible garbles of redneck dialect. He even managed to get an "er hua" onto several non-vowels, which should have been impossible.

He wandered down the mineshaft with his hands clasped behind his back. As the boss of the mineshaft, it was his duty to inspect the work unit personally.

He passed by a group of miners squatting down in a pile of garbage, their picks piled on the ground and covered in a layer of coal. They smoked cigarettes and grunted at each other. Cheng Guang grunted at them as he passed by.

His stomach rumbled, and a stream of liquid poo poo escaped into his sole pair of soiled underwear which he hadn't hand-washed in two or three days. He clenched his cheeks harder to stem the flow. The liquid poo poo was hot and warmed him as he walked further down the cold shaft.

He passed a half-dozen more miners all sleeping in a minecart. Their legs were hanging out of the cart as they snored loudly. One miner was managing to smoke a cigarette even as he snored and drooled.

Cheng Guang nodded at him and gave a hearty grunt, praising his ingenuity.

At this rate, Cheng Guang's work unit would definitely not meet the party's quota, which was fine, because the quota didn't need to be filled for two more weeks, and was thus not an immediate problem. Probably in two weeks, on the day of the quota and the day the party's inspectors would arrive, Cheng Guang and his work unit would frantically and ineptly start swinging their pickaxes as they realized the problem, but right now, everything was great.

Except for his need to poo poo.

It wasn't time yet.

Everything in this new country had a time. On September 22nd, the first day of Fall, it was time to put on your thick clothes. The bitter cold hit Xinjiang in early September this year, but only on September 22nd was it time to put on the coats.

7:00AM was the time for breakfast. Cheng Guang's new country only had one timezone, which made a lot of sense for a country more than 6,000 kilometers across. Cheng Guang's village was so far West, that the sun had barely set at 7:00 AM. Still, because 7:00 AM is the time that you eat your breakfast, so Cheng Guang and his family slurped their breakfast in the pitch darkness of 7:00AM.

Around Noon, which was the good time for lunch, the sun finally began to rise, and Cheng Guang and his comrades slurped their lunch and gnawed on their lunch bones while enjoying the Noon sunrise.

10:00pm was the time you go to sleep. The sun wouldn't set for several more hours, but everyone knew you should sleep at 10:00pm if you wanted to be able to wake up in total darkness to slurp your breakfast at 7:00AM.

All of those other times were irrelevant to Cheng Guang in this moment, however, as he waited with tight asscheeks for the time he most craved: communal toilet time.

"Coal Mine Boss Li," the voice near him grunted.

"En?" Cheng Guang grunted back.

"Didn't you hear me?" The voice was Little Foreigner. That's what they called their comrade who had the weird white skin and blue eyes.

"I didn't understand your language," Cheng Guang lied to save face. He hadn't heard him because he was focusing so hard in holding his poo poo in.

"I speak Mandarin," Little Foreigner said. "Your parents brutally colonized my country and forced this language onto me, I've spoken it since birth. I'm not even allowed to learn my parents' langauge."

"Ah," Cheng Guang grunted, retroflexing the poo poo out of the sound, "Yes, you've always been part of China, little foreigner."

Little Foreigner sighed. "Why don't I dig you a hole with my pickaxe, and you can poo poo into it, Coal Mine Boss Li?"

Cheng Guang furrowed his brows at Little Foreigner, then slapped him with a hearty backhand. "We poo poo together! And I don't need to poo poo now, it's not communal bathroom time yet. How could I poo poo if it's not the time to do it? Idiot Foreigner."

Little Foreigner apologized, which was very foreign of him, and Cheng Guang threw a lump of coal at him as he crawled back down the shaft and out of Cheng Guang's view.

Cheng Guang squatted himself down, pressing his rear end onto the cold, hard ground so that his poo poo wouldn't escape his body. He waited like that, squatting as deep as a Chinese could hope to squat, until communal toilet time finally arrived.

He blew his whistle, and the miners all woke up.

They hustled and bustled out of the shaft, but none faster than Cheng Guang.

Upon exiting the shaft, they all rushed together to the collective toilet. It was one big trench dug into the soil. It took a lot of work to maintain a trough this size, as they always had to dig it deeper when it filled with poo poo and piss. With a work unit of over 40 miners, a huge trough of this size was the only way to accommodate the entire work unit's communal poo poo. A small trough would only be able to hold three or four miners at a time, which would make no sense, as all 40 miners need to poo poo at 3:30pm, which is the time that everyone takes a poo poo together.

Back in the village away from the mineshaft, all the villagers would wake up from their naps to crowd into the village's communal troughs.

When the clock struck 3:30pm, all bowels released. It was like a cacophony, but a cacophony that sounded good instead of bad, as all of Cheng Guang's work unit let their shits rip into the trough. The smell hit him like a wall, and he sighed relief. That smell always reminded him of how good it felt to not have to poo poo anymore.

He pulled out a cigarette and lit it, then he looked down at the man squatting next to him, and they grunted at each other as they smoked and blew smoke into each others' faces.

Once the clock hit 3:33 pm, it was time for them all to pull their pants up without wiping. They did this in unison, and Cheng Guang grunted at everyone to get back into the shaft. He'd spotted a nice dark corner in the shaft, and now that he'd lightened his load, he was going to go have a rest in the musty hole until it was 5:00pm, the time everyone wakes and leaves work together.

Darkest Auer posted:

What does that even mean? I'm afraid India has utterly broken your mind, especially since apparently you voluntarily live in a prohibition state(?).

HerStuddMuffin posted:

Bajaj, I don't mean to pry (bullshit, I totally do), but are you working in India? Are you just living on your savings from China and enjoying life for however long they last?