Posts by Isham Cook

In search of a happy ending

THIS SHORT STORY ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON ISHAM COOK’S BLOG

Back to Fengtai in Beijing. I finally come across a new prospect, a zhongyi clinic, the characters standing for traditional Chinese massage, a type of massage I don’t like. Done over the clothes with rough pinching, pushing and pounding, it has to be the most unsensual massage ever invented.

Setting out to visit every massage parlour in China

THIS SHORT STORY ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON ISHAM COOK’S BLOG

A red neon sign so far in the distance it could be a firefly. I too am a fly and it pulls me irresistibly toward it, for it is in the shape of a suspected character, and like most shop signs that consist of a single character, it is probably zu, meaning “foot.” While zu might resemble a standing or crouching man, the upper square being his head, the image is in fact thought to have originally depicted a footprint.