Sensory overload

JAKARTA - I looove the sensation but I always feel quite guilty when I ask for this:

“Hair spa and foot reflesi please.”

Jakarta is probably the only place where for US$6, you can have twenty fingers massaging you at the same time – ten for your head and ten for your feet. The first time I had this hour-long treat, I must admit I was very confused by the sensory overload. Just where should I be feeling? Ooo ooo, the head, the head. That feels good. One second later, the foot... The foot feels so good. And ahh, I can feel the stress being taken out of my skull now. Then ouch! That’s an accupoint there on my toe!

The net result of this sensory overload is that I have to shut my eyes in the hour or so I am at the hair salon. Both in comfort and in the attempt to shut off any other channel of sensory inputs to my overloaded brain.

Sometimes I wonder if Karl Marx is turning in his grave to know that two proletariats are serving one capitalist exploiter of labour. And more so, if he knows that the proletariats are probably earning only 10% of the miniscule sum paid by the capitalist…