Coined: Khmer Remedies

I slept badly last night.

I couldn't get to sleep, first of all, however tired, my mind was racing (as it does annoyingly often). When I finally went to sleep, my dreams were restless, disturbed, and disturbing. When my alarm went off at 7am, my entire body was protesting mightily, and I sort of stumbled my way into the day.

When I arrived at rehearsal at 8am, things hadn't really improved, and I was sort of there in a haze, until my student suggested I be "coined."

I had seen it before -- neat rows of red, irritated skin from neck to back, over shoulders and along the collarbone. It is a Khmer tradition for those who are sick. They believe it helps them get better, I'm not quite sure how exactly but I think it has something to do with releasing the bad energy. Headaches, dizziness, fever, insomnia, exhaustion, all can be helped with the coining. I can't remember exactly what it's called in Khmer.

It literally is coining -- generally, the edge of a coin is rubbed along the skin until it turns bright red, not quite enough to bleed. I was somewhat dubious as I thought it would hurt, but at last agreed to let him do it. Anything, I thought, would be better than passing the day as a zombie.

Without a coin available, we used the top of my tiger balm pot. He put the tiger balm on first and then rubbed it in with the edge of the lid, neat rows from neck, down the spine, horizontally to the bottom of the shoulder blades, around the shoulder and down the collarbone, and three long lines mid-way down my upper arm.

It didn't hurt that badly, really, if at all, and everything was left tingling. At the start the skin turned red very easily, but by the time he reached my left arm, it was hardly reddening at all, which he told me meant I was getting better.

He also said the color had returned to my cheeks, which had apparently been quite pale when I arrived. He said that at the start I seemed to have no soul behind my eyes.

I'm still quite exhausted and have a bit of a headache, but I do think it helped.

Here is the result (you'll notice he spared the butterfly...):