Sexy Back

Maybe it’s those deliciously unhygenic street-side food I had in Jakarta, but I wasn’t feeling too well ever since I returned home yesterday.

My face was pale, my feet were sore and my nose was running a marathon non-stop.
Off I went to visit my foot reflexologist at BDC to help me feel a bit better. But barely 10 minutes into my session, my therapist looked at my condition and suggested that I should try “fire cupping” instead. She said and I quote, that it’s gonna help me “suck the toxins out of my body”. Okayyyy!
That sounds helluva interesting eventhough I didn’t know what the hell “fire cupping” was about. But I was willing to try anyway. So I was led into a private room. She asked me to take off my shirt as she slowly dimmed the lights…
60 minutes and a lot of screaming later, I was left with this.


Oh. My. Gawd.
Tell me I don’t look like I was being raped by a giant freaking octopus!


Two more weeks till my big race in Penang. OMG!

130 Replies to “Sexy Back”

  1. gosh that surely hurt like hell!
    but if it’s effeective then it should be worth it.
    how much does it cost?
    and what did they actually do??? o.O”

  2. Yea. It hurts quite badly because its like sucking your skin. And you’ve got a pretty sexy back there. =P

  3. Dude you have gymmed too much. Do more cardio or you’d look bulkily fat. Trust me, that’s yuck.
    The “firecupping” is painful. Ooh. When they remove those firecups, the popping sound isn’t the nicest either.

  4. neh. u look like ur run over by a cargo truck or smth =D but i gotta say, u one brave dude to try tat out. HAHA

  5. My goodness gracious! Holy crap! Ouch..ouch. I got goosebumps when I saw that pick (“Merinding” is how we call in Indonesian). Sh*te!
    I’m soo sorry to hear that you got sick after Jakarta – you should have known better my dear! Wish you had someone to take you around in Jakarta (like me or my friends!) and we would take you to these clean hawker style foodstalls..
    I am still trying to imagine how YOU travelled by yourself in Jakarta..!Unbelieavable! hehe. Very adventurous.
    Cant wait for further review on jakarta, Kenny! Did you go to X2?

  6. those cups really help. perhaps if u try another method which they use either spoon or something else to scrub ur back, that one i tell you. you will be cursing for the whole process and crying like a baby…

  7. LOL, food in indo, you’ve just gotta get used to em.
    most of the time hawkers along streets are far better than any food money can buy!
    so for everything good, there’s a price to pay =)

  8. looks painful but it doesnt hurt lah. essentially the same as a hickey cept its not as fun. but cmon sucking toxins out of the body?! better tell ur readers to stop giving lovebites then cos theyll be poisoned

  9. Shouldn’t you have gone to the doctor in the first place? That aside, now you have some kinda sexy back which may be of sexual appeal to octopus. =)
    Get well soon, and good luck in your marathon.

  10. “Dude you have gymmed too much. Do more cardio or you’d look bulkily fat. Trust me, that’s yuck.”
    dude, trust Qi. i like ur v-shaped back, juz not the layer of fat covering it…
    hot-cupping sounds like smtg i would avoid

  11. OMG, it goes all the way down into your pants.
    Let’s observe a moment of silence for KennySia’s butthole virginity, cruelly lost to the ravages of a ‘giant freaking octopus’

  12. erm… reminds me when I got food poisoning in Jakarta last time. Almost the all the international employees who sent there for training got sick (all locals were fine -___-b). Should try one of their fruit (can’t remember the name), it smells like shit, looks like shit (very dark and lumpy hard skin), but taste pretty good (milky white flesh like rambutan). According to the locals, it helps to cure diarrhoea and serious stomach discomfort.

  13. Hey Kenny,
    Didn’t know that you were into that kind of kinky stuff. Looked like you were attacked by a pack of teenagers and left you with all that hickies! Speaking of sucking, just got back from Guadalarajara Mexico and it plain sucks for a 10M city. Prefer Kuching any day. Get well soon.

  14. “cupping” is the traditional way to “suck the toxins out from the body”. It’s quite popular among malay society too. Feel better after the “sucking”?

  15. Kenny Kenny, you should go do the back rubbing *ahem* I mean back screcthing with the spoon oohhhhh yeah , cuz if you think the fire cuppling was bad, you would weep like a baby when you do the back screatching, seriously they do it with a spoon and it hurst like hell, then burns like hell afterwards, then you will bruse for 1 whole week, so since the therapist didnt suggest that you should be thankful ^^, but the methods work thogh, even though it hurts its actually effective….

  16. kenny , i wish u get well soon. Take care.
    Ur back . U more look like u kena run by car over u . It is more look like roda kereta 😛 lol

  17. Did the scraping thing down my back once. And I mean once.
    My aunt scraped a piece of wood down my back and I screamed and refused to let them touch me again.
    Heal in a few days also. No need one lar.

  18. hmm… what a coincident, having the same posting on the same day. tried in KL. similar feeling, similar blog posting. 🙂 the only difference is i had more toxin than you. 😛

  19. i do this for my mum also..suppose to let the “air” out.. similarily u cld use a saucer to scrub your neck & back..

  20. hey, u mite not like tat fire cupping thing, but it’s actly quite useful… when i came bek home everyyear from nz, i did tat to “take” away the heatiness in d body…
    get well soon!
    and dun visit the beach without ur top on for a week! u’ll scare gals off… hahahaha

  21. Wow dude… looks ugly!.. well, does it work? do you feel better?
    I bet the mark stay for weeks!! hahaha.. stay away from the beach.. or any place that requires you to be topless! YOu might found people running for their life! as you open your shirt. hehehe..

  22. Why did you go to that place anyway? But as for me, Indonesia, I am get used to it already. So I will not get sick easily because of the unhygenic food. Hehe. If you are going to Indonesia again, please do tell me so I will take you to the not-that-unhygenic place to eat =p
    Sorry to say that you cannot gurantee the food you eat in Indonesia is 100% clean and hygenic (unless you go to the fancy restaurant or something)…

  23. Fire cupping is fun!!! I enjoyed it a lot! And yea, I was the one putting the cup on peoples’ back of cause :p

  24. This is call “ba guan” in chinese. =) it works, i always do it when i sick.
    o.O u got hit by Davy Jones pet, Kraken. Tat’s the scar.. =X joke! haha!! =D

  25. Yup, she did some cupping alright. And she played with fire on you. Good thing you were spared below the waist. Or were there some cool cupping down there too?
    Don’t tell.

  26. You do look like you had a fight with a giant octopus.
    Next round if want good food go Restoran Sederhana, Masakan Padang. Their “cumi”(sotong) is very yummy.
    Another is Mamink Daeng Tata(Tata’ribs & Konro). It’s actually BBQ ribs.
    Avoid a restaurant named “Suharti” at Jln Wahid Hasyim. Lousy food and price…they slaughter you like nobody’s business!

  27. humm.. u should not go for the street food. One of my workmates who went down to Jakarta with me try the foods beside the road and fall sick. We need to send in back to KL for medical treatment. 🙂

  28. If you have a video recording of the whole session..that would be GREAT…
    that will definitely scaring the hell out of us and render firecupping obselete…hihi

  29. the truth is out, Kenny Sia is the direct descendant of the Kraken in Pirates of the Carribean…. 😉

  30. o… my mom do that b4, n she say it was great after doing that. not very sure about that. kenny, u have to go more gym, the shape n line is coming out liao~

  31. poor kenny… dear dear me.. you’re ‘kepanasan’.. drink more water and rest more.. that should do you good…
    **agrees with the titles…
    >.

  32. omg! ur body is really heaty..
    i heard that the more ‘heaty’ ur body is the ‘reder’ e markings will be! and urs is really red!
    take care=)

  33. fire cupping…. my mom and dad did them a few years back. was it last year or the year before that Gwynneth Paltrow was caught on film (camera) with those scars on her back and people were saying she was doing some black magic crap?

  34. Damn that looks painful. My mother did it a few years ago and passed out from blood loss during the procedure. The scars can still be seen if you look closely. Good luck for your recovery! 😀

  35. Gee seeing your pics made me have flashbacks to when i got ‘cupped’
    During
    it hurt like hell – breathless actually!
    (and no had no idea it would hurt)
    Post
    felt much better
    but thought I looked like friggin Barney the Purple Dinosaur (purple marks down the spine!)
    Get well soon – love your blog!

  36. i don’t think fire cupping is good for any health purpose. You actually end up with burst veins and damaged skin. It will takes maybe up to weeks for the sign to disappear. You also may have long term effect later in your life.

  37. Looking at your “thingy”, you seems pretty healthy. Only sick people will have dark purple sucked-scar!

  38. Supposedly the more of these octopus marks youhave on your body the more “poison” is being purged out from your body.
    My friend loves to do that – says it detoxifies her… =P

  39. I’ve done that toxic sucking thing, kenny..but it does not hurt as much as u describe it la… ehehehe.. i guess u cannot tahan pain huh…
    anyways, i noticed… u like yellow huh? all ur bedsheet yellow wan… ehehheeh…
    Hope to see u soon… take care…
    Muaacckkksss!!!

  40. Hey Kenny,
    u kena bekam ah? anyway, thats supposed to buang angin and impurities…i had a friend who did it for me….vacuum suction.
    Felt better after that though…wot abt u?

  41. Hey!
    I’m surprised that you don’t know about the “fire cups”! I thought most Kuching chinese people would know the remedy where you either use a plate to scrap your back after applying vicks or ointment , or use your index and middle fingers to “kiap sua” (clam ‘sua'[heatiness])?
    Same principle as the fire cups because it is targetted to relief body heatiness…
    I trust this technique because once when I was losing conciousness and my hearing became fuzzy to the point of a deafening buzz, and my eyes couldn’t open anymore and i lost all bodily energy, (cos i think i was too “heaty” and had fever and flu at the time), my father “kiap”-ed my shoulders and i perspired straight away, and instantly gained conciousness. Otherwise i think i would have fainted…
    Quite effective, i must say!
    🙂

  42. woo… been there… done that.. except i had more cupping than you.. i practically had my whole back with holes and worst.. mine was blue black!!!

  43. its a very popular type of traditional method of detoxifying and known as Bakum in Malay….
    most ppl who use this method to detox is among guys…. Btw… they have loads in Malaysia la… why go all the way to indonesia to do it?

  44. gosh tht looks scary! I personally dont believe in them, dont think they really work.
    get well soon!

  45. How gutsy of you to try fire-cupping. Kinda looks like gua-sha to me. Just in cup shapes. Btw, ppl have died from fire-cupping before. So good thing you didn’t become another statistic.

  46. haha… at least will suck all the toxic out mah… ehhem… since u say the lights are dim and in a private room… anything happen??? ehhem hem…!!!

  47. Kenny, your firecupping reminds me of the treatment that I went to for my back problem (I’ve got slipped disk+sciatica – nerve pain). I went to see this Chinese doctor for a few months…
    .. and the whole process of the treament..
    1. Acupuncture – he’ll poke in needles of “a few inch long” :s into areas with problem. For my case, it’s on the lower back, butt and basically almost my whole leg down to the heels. He poked the needles in real fast and will ‘tune’ it (imagine like tuning knob of a radio) till I was like kena electric shock = means hit the right spot.
    2. He’ll put a piece of dried medicine on top of the needle.. and burn it (it’s like burning ‘kemeyen’). Sometimes hot piece of it will fall onto my back.. ouch!!!
    3. Once the burnings were done, he’ll remove the needles.. real fast! Sometimes would have a bit of blood coming out as well.
    4. Firecupping – he’ll place cups on ‘the spots where he poked the needle just now’ … this really ‘sucks’… for first timer, it’s painful cuz’ it’s sucking the skin. There was once he put the cups on my tummy when I complained about a bloated tummy.. Should have kept my mouth shut… imagine firecupping your spare tyre?!
    5. ‘Tui La’ (massage) – he used a lot of strength for this as the main point is to straighten my spine .. which was in the ‘S’ shape..
    6. A final twist on the spine for a loud ‘crack’! phew…
    The whole process will take up to more than 1 hour. And of course, after the treament, bruised all over. For my first time… I was screaming and crying. First, cuz’ of the pain from the acupuncture, firecupping and Tui La.. second.. on an already pain body. And Imagine I have travel for about an hour to go for the treatment twice a week.. every week!?
    But good thing is, all the pain paid off when I started to see improvement. Somehow, after a few treatment, I kinda enjoy it :p cuz’ it feels so good after the treatment.
    I can now walk straight. before that, I could hardly walk cuz’ I was in pain. My whole body was senget when I walked.
    So.. I won’t say that things like this won’t work but you gotta have patience cuz’ it’s not something that can cure after just 1 treatment.

  48. Actually, there isn’t any evidence that fire-cupping helps remove toxins from the body so any positive effects felt after the treatment is largely psychological..
    Oh well, whatever hurts has to be good for you, eh?

  49. hahahaha, that is such a way to detox, normal people do it the nomal way, the one where you go into the toilet and take off your pants and concentrate. how can you call this detox man. where does the dirty stuff comes out from?

  50. dude you shouldn’t diss a country so much. They might have the same opinion about Malaysia. You are a guess at their country.

  51. yeah man everytime i go indonesia i also get food poisoning. if i stay for 1 week, i get 3 days diarrhoea, if i stay for 1 month, i get 1 week bad-ass food poisoning…. even tho i eat at clean restaurants (seems to be, cos of the price!) and avoid hawker food. maybe it’s the air….lol

  52. how long will those marks stays?..my friend did the same thing last time n he was the only one wearing clothes n siting beside the beach while we went swimming..hehe

  53. You’re bringing sexy back fo`sho. HAHAHAHA. I was watching the Simple Life and they did it to suck fat out of people. -shrugs-
    We have thsoe donuts in California.

  54. you obviously did not enjoy stadium, next time u go there again let me know, i promise u the party of a lifetime, the girls there are much better then blowfish…oh and by the way, how do i know this, because the place is owned by my uncle….
    cheers…

  55. you offer kenny sia to go to stadium again??? please, don’t make Jakarta worsen for foreigner

  56. Beside food, in Indonesia, you should try the traditional treatment too. Because here, same like cupping, our back are scratched by coin + cajuputi oil, and it left a red mark just like yours. It called ‘kerokan’. It hurts, but after that, you’ll get well.

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