How to properly Cạo Gió
...and maybe get arrested trying
I am sure if you have been in Vietnam, you have seen it. Cạo Gió is the medicinal practice which involves scratching the surface level of the skin, causing red marks to form on the back or chest of a person. Some of these marks are long red lines, some are circular marks all over the body, which may even cover portions of the neck or arms. Maybe some of you even tried this but haven’t known much about the practice. Hopefully, I can provide a bit of insight.
Chị (older sister) Kayla does a wonderful job demonstrating what I could call the most difficult aspect of Vietnamese culture to get accustomed to. I say this as a person who has eaten all of the Vietnamese foods which would have guaranteed me first prize on Fear Factor back in the day. Chị Kayla summons her inner “Bob Ross” to make a beautiful festive Christmas tree on the back of her victim ….I mean “patient”, …I mean canvas.
I love Chị Kayla’s videos. I have been watching her for years since I first heard her Vietnamese “What do you mean?” Justin Bieber cover.
She is a Việt Kiều out of Southern California and manages to perfectly capture the blending of the two cultures. She started off doing Vietnamese covers of American pop songs and branched out into Vietnamese lessons and various skits. Her skit in the top video is what I will talk about today. …the infamous cạo gió.
What is Cạo Gió?
Cạo gió is the medicinal art of coin rubbing or a rubbing of a metal object (if coins are not available) against the skin with medicinal oil until the surface layer of the skin becomes bruised.
Most of the time, “Coin Rubbing” is used with medicinal oil. This panacea medical oil is used for almost everything. If you have a cold, you put a little oil under your nose to dry up the sinuses. If you have a mosquito bite, you put the oil on the bite and it stops itching. If you have a cut, you can put the oil on the cut if you enjoy feeling an excruciating pain for a few minutes, but it will heal quickly. It contains a strong dosage of menthol and it smells like Tiger Balm. There are several brands, each with their different formulas and potencies. There are oils for children and for specific ailments. Here is one of the more popular oils being sold on Amazon. It’s sold out when I wrote this, but look at those reviews, people love this stuff.
Here are some oils and ointments I have around the house.
I am not going to show any real life example of this being done, because I don’t really want any evidence against me to cause me to be arrested later, haha, …joking, but not really joking.
Legal Problems in the West
There are reports of Vietnamese facing legal troubles when good meaning citizens report bruises from this medicinal practice to local law enforcement. NIH talks about the legality of this. Here is an article with famous Vietnamese celebrities practicing Cạo Gió in Vietnam, but when they go to America, most are advised to keep themselves covered to avoid law enforcement problems.
There are plenty of reports on Facebook of Vietnamese encountering legal problems when they practice this medicinal therapy on their family in Western countries. In California recently, a person accompanying a famous MC (a woman) was detained by police after someone reported the striped bruises on her back.
Early in the days of Vietnamese immigration to the U.S., there were occasional reports of social workers being called when these surface bruises were seen on the children or wives. Nowadays, many law enforcement living in Vietnamese neighborhoods are aware of this practice, but it can still be a problem when culturally unaware citizens decide to get involved and report the matter to law enforcement. Usually this could involve a person being detained along with some embarrassing photos being taken until the matter can be resolved. In less culturally aware regions, this may even result in arrest.
Maybe the Western aversion to this practice is due to this early episode of the original Star Trek, where a Salt Vampire would leave markings from extracting the salt, forming red circular sores all over the victims bodies. Some may have thought there was a Salt Vampire infestation. haha
How is it done?
The process of Cạo Gió involves putting a generous amount of oil on to the skin or coin and then rubbing that coin with moderate pressure until blood comes to the skin surface. As an alternate treatment, there is a similar procedure called cupping, where glass cups are heated with a candle or a small torch until the glass is quite hot. The glass is put on the skin until it sucks up the skin into the glass (as you can see in the photo below). After a few minutes, the cups are removed leaving a series of bright red bruises on the skin. These bruises persist on the skin for about a week or so. I have seen this most commonly practiced when I was in China or among the backpackers coming off of a long flight in the touristy parts of Hồ Chí Minh, who want a healthy traditional Vietnamese cure for their jetlag. I am a bit cautious about this cure as these cups tend to draw out yellowish or reddish bodily fluid and I am not sure how often they are cleaned.
This technique has ancient origins in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). In TCM the approach is not to heal specific diseases, but to create a balance of energy in the body so the body can naturally heal itself. It is said that many of the ailments are not actually caused by a single disease, but are a symptom of the body being out of balance. A disease can only be cured when the entire system is brought back into balance.
Much like a massage releases stress; this may have a similar effect on muscular injuries and would likely cause an increase in endorphins leading to overall relief of symptoms of other diseases. There may even be an increase in the body’s immune defenses by stressing an unrelated organ (the skin) to generate a higher immune response. This would be similar to how a vaccine contains an antigen to activate the immune system to engage the body’s natural defenses against a weakened or killed bacteria or virus.
In the end, the process of letting the fluid out through the skin of the back is said to speed up the recovery time of many diseases, including the common cold. Medical science is conflicted about TCM. Certain practices such as acupuncture and certain medicinal herbs have been found to have real scientific benefits, but much of it is still yet to be proven, but practitioners are optimistic that science will catch up. The jury is still out on this practice.
Thank you for this illuminating article, Brian!