Bamboo Butterfly

The doctor stuck the first needle into my lower leg. I felt an electric jolt. Tingles, pain, waves of heat rushed through my body. My palms began to sweat. Nothing like the acupuncture sessions I had back in Chicago–nice, thin, hardly noticeable needles. Pretty music, relaxing heat lamp. Nope. These needles were huge, metal and had either hit nerves/bone or were doing something interesting to my Qi. “Ouch,” I attempted feebly. “Da.” Chinese for big. The doctor smiled down at me gleefully, nodding in agreement and then proceeded to say something undecipherable about the size. He continued to place the needles. One in my ear, arms, one above my belly button. He turned on a small heat lamp, moving it over my stomach.

“San shi.” He said. 30.  I was supposed to lie there 30 minutes, quietly. In my acupuncture sessions in the states, each one led to a quiet meditation whereupon I felt great after ending the treatment.  Not today.

My muscles throbbed. I couldn’t clear my mind. I kept thinking about how large the needles were.  Another thing- I suspected they were re-used.  Hopefully sterilized. I began worrying about contamination.  He hadn’t used anything to clean my skin before inserting them.

Why couldn’t I just relax? When I’d first walked into the office, I’d noticed a monk meditating in the waiting room.  She’d been oblivious to all, blocking out her surroundings. Why couldn’t I do this?

The minutes ticked on and I found myself wishing my session would end. I attempted to move and received more pain, jolts, an aching sensation.  Not wanting to be a wimp and call the doctor, I tolerated the discomfort.

Then I saw it.  Directly above my feet, hanging out on the window and gazing down at my acupuncture bed, sat one of the eight-legged mutants I’ve come to detest in Taiwan.  Spiders in Taiwan are not ordinary, small Charlotte’s Web-type spiders.  No, no. The spiders in this country must have at some point, stepped into radioactive waste material.

A strangled sound came out of my throat. The spider moved somewhere behind the blinds.

The receptionist came in and looked down at me with a puzzled expression, as if trying to make sense of the noise coming from my mouth.  I scanned my brain quickly.  “Laya, Laya! There! There!” I said.  I pointed to the window.  Now I do have to say that the spider that appeared in the window was not a Laya (see hideous picture below) but was some sort of new specimen that had somehow been drawn to me; a creature with yellow, brown, and white stripes and a body about the size of a golf ball. (Why is it that every bug I encounter lately is at least golf-ball sized?) Layas are quite large, much larger than a golf ball, but I didn’t know what else to say.

She stared at me for a few moments, until finally she comprehended that the Waiguoren was not speaking English. She nodded in sudden understanding.  My heart sank as I watched her go to the blinds, beginning to move them about and shake them. I had visions of the spider falling onto my feet. I let out a scream.  A small scream. (You have to remember, incapable of performing any sudden movements without causing pain to myself, I was pretty much paralyzed on the bed.)   But my small scream sounded extra-loud. The woman looked at me in astonishment; my face turning red as I thought of the nice, quiet monk mediating in the lobby. I was the noisy foreigner disturbing the peace.

“Dui bu qi.  Wo bu xihuan Laya.” I am sorry. I do not like the big, ugly, hideous spider. The lady turned again to the window and pulled the curtain back. “No. No Laya.”  She laughed. I tried to demonstrate with my hand how it must have run away to the other wall. She gave me a funny look and began to take my needles out, ending my acupuncture session early.

I think she thought I was crazy. I paid for the session, received my large supply of Chinese herbs,and apologized once more.  She kinda smiled, nodded, and looked at me with a skeptical/amused expression. Leaving the office I thought about how I’ll probably be banned from having acupuncture there again. Not that I want to do it. Giant needles and giant spiders together in one room are just too much for one person to handle!

Here is an example of a Laya (Huntsman spider) I had the unfortunate experience of meeting in a squat toilet some months back:

And this one I killed in my apartment last year (Note: it took a whole can of raid and a small racket to end its life!).