In China they use something called "cupping" to help relieve tension and pain in a person's body.  They use a candle to remove the oxygen from a small container called a cup.  They come in various sizes but a typical cup might be about two inches in diameter.  The use of the candle creates a vacuum which causes the cup to grip the body tightly where the cup is placed.  It actually sucks the skin within the mouth of the cup up into the cup along with whatever blood or poisons might be lurking beneath the skin.  The cups are typically used on the back and shoulders of the body.

If a cup is placed on a healthy part of the body it leaves a healthy looking red circle when it is removed.  If the place where the cup is placed in unhealthy, the cup leaves an angry looking black circle when the cup is removed.

This weekend I learned that there is another way to place the cups on the body.  Ping found a kit in Chinatown about the size of a briefcase that has multiple cups in two sizes and some kind of vacuum pump that creates the suction to firmly attach a cup to the body.  She cupped me as she experimented to learn how to use the vacuum pump.  Very strange, she remarked.  The cups left healthy looking circles on the right side of my back but ugly black circles on the left side of my back.

Ping believes in this cupping technique so it is my job to learn how to cup her back from time to time.  Look out!