"I'm in pain! Let the government hear that!" cried out Wang Pei-hsin (
Wang's pain, which echoes that of many other blind massage professionals, is caused in part by the slack business resulting from the public's misunderstanding of the massage industry and ongoing discrimination against the blind.
The center, on the fifth floor of an apartment building, is easy to miss as it has no sign marking it outside. Those who have found the place were largely taken there by friends who recommended the service. Its three rooms, which can accommodate a total of six costumers, are equipped with basic facilities such as restrooms and air-conditioning and are kept reasonably clean.
Most masseurs, however, can afford no better than dark and poorly-ventilated flats, despite the fact that a shoddy and suspicious-looking exterior may scare off potential costumers -- something of which they are all too aware.
Although the Physically or Mentally Handicapped Protection Law of 1985 says that only visually impaired people can practice massage, masseurs who are not visually impaired take up most of the market. Witness the ubiquitous barber shops with darkened windows which employ masseuses who provide sexual services as well.
"When the police were regulating the eight major businesses (
"What [the police] forgot to add is that they meant brothels operating disguised as barber shops. That resulted in a serious misunderstanding among the public that blind masseurs are indecent people."
Wang's massage center was opened three years ago amid severe stereotyping. With quiet perseverance, Wang and his co-workers open their doors daily, but may only receive three or four customers a day, even on holidays.
When they started the center, they cheerfully put up a signboard on the apartment building, but the next day, a woman living in the same building demanded they take it down.
"`People would think that there's a sex business in this building,'" Wang quoted the woman as saying. "To avoid quarreling with our new neighbors, we took down the signboard, though our business has nothing to do with the sex industry." Wang said that following the incident they never tried to put up signboards or place advertisements, afraid of being mistaken again for a place of ill-repute. But the lack of promotion is not helping business.
Government help
Not that the government doesn't know or doesn't care about their difficulties. The Taipei City government provides an annual NT$2 million subsidy for the mentally or physically impaired. A notice saying that his business receives such a subsidy is painted right at the entrance of Wang's establishment.
The government is not giving away money for nothing, however, and in the case of most massage centers it may be asking too much.
A massage center whose earnings are under a certain level must train a certain number of non-congenitally blind people to perform massage and help them pass the examination for a class-C massage practitioner's certificate, a process that takes two years.
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