Yi Xuang

Both the business cards and the fluorescent-​lit sign over the door portray a white-​teri-​cloth robe clad woman laying supine on her stomach – surrounded by a formless, abstract white space – eyes closed in bliss, as she receives the serenity-​inducing touch of a professionally-​trained masseuse. Somehow I think this is not the typical experience at this ‘spa’. I wonder how many women –if any – ever partake of the services at this dicey-​looking massage emporium at 8^th & 60^th. I saw strings of employees trooping into this establishment tonight, obviously starting their (graveyard) shift. They were so diminutive and young it looked like an elementary school field trip. It looked like someone bringing their daughters home from a sleepover. Eh well. Yi Xuang is one block away from the famously naïve ‘Yu Lo Li’ spa, on 59^th St… similar setup. Parlor is sandwiched in among two other businesses, their sign nestled as inconspicuously as possible among two others. $ 35 dollah fa one howa! ‘12^th massage free’ with reward card. Well.look. what I really dislike is this: slouching all around the foyer of Yi Xuan are the inevitable lazy, shiftless, slovenly pigs .oh sorry, err, ‘agents’ or ‘business representatives’? Eh well. The price is right but is it worth dealing with the language barrier? Or, these skeevy Chinatown low-​lifes? I’m thinking ‘no’.