those of you who know me, know that I'm married to a woman from mainland China. Occasionally, I lose all semblance of common sense and allow my betrothed to drag me "home" to spend time with her family. This past January, I was on such a trip.
The amusing thing, actually, is that said wife's younger (27, looks 12 - go figure) sister is, without a shadow of a doubt, *the* most ticklish girl in all of China. I've said as much in the past, even posted how she's impossible to even touch, really... but this past trip, some interesting things happened, so I thought I'd share.
Now, as previously mentioned, my younger sister (I'll call her Mei) cannot stand to be tickled for *any* length of time. The first time I did so, on my last trip, she shot twenty feet into the air. The second, I received the most unholy of sounds for my effort. A mixed reaction, to be sure; I figured more "research" was necessary.
Well, the first time I had the chance this trip was when she, my wife, and I, were all sitting together in her dorm room in Beijing. I was lying on her bed, feet near the computer desk at the foot of the bed. My wife'd sat down to use the computer, and sassed me for reasons I don't recall, so I dug a foot under her arm. Ticklishness runs in the family, and my wife puts up with it once in a while. Mei laughed at my treatment of her older sib, so I figured hey, no big deal.
Mei eventually quipped something to me I don't recall; she's been studying English and we're actually able to communicate now, and of course she enjoys ribbing me. So when *she* sat down in front of the computer, she got the foot-under-arm treatment.
Now folks, I don't speak Chinese very well, but whatever she said in response to being tickled was not repeatable. She also gave me that indignant little "hmph!" thing Anime girls usually do, so I'm thinking okay, there's no hope for ol' Phin this trip. Don't want to make the girl angry - she didn't even laugh. To really drive the point home, my wife looks at me and says "she's afraid of tickling". Okay, okay, I get the point.
So the next day, we've arrived in Xuzhou, my wife's hometown. I stayed at home for some reason (we were bunking with her parents) while my wife and my in-laws went out. Mei stayed with me... basically, she'd vowed to never leave my side for the entire three weeks I was there because she wanted to improve her English. I have no problem with this. 😀
Now, Mei, for some reason, has decided that it's okay to be *very* physically affectionate with her brother-in-law (yo!). She held my hand, hugged me, put her head on my shoulder, and did all sorts of similar stuff the whole time I was there. So on this day we're chatting about something, and she informed me she'd done something for me that required me to thank her. Memory fails on what, exactly, but she was behind me as she put her head on my shoulder from behind and said, "thank me!".
My intent, of course, was to reach around and hug her "in reverse". But somehow, she shifted, and I could see in the mirror that my hand was about to go between her legs. My brain began to flail its' robot arms and shout "DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!" - would be *very* bad to continue on *that* course of action. So I shifted, using said mirror as a guide, to actually get her in the backward-hug as intended, and accidentally wind up tickling her in the ribs instead.
Here is where it gets interesting.
Rather than freak, swear at me in Chinese, or make an ugly noise... she laughed. That's not the funny part. What is...
...is that she tried to tickle me back.
Now, I'm not the most ticklish of persons, especially not in the clothes I was wearing (China's cold this time'a year!). But in the back of my nog, I'm thinkin', did my little sister, who is apparently "afraid" of being tickled, just have a favorable reaction and also try to initiate a tickle fight with me?
I didn't reciprocate, because I didn't want to push it. But that was definitely different.
Then, a few days later, I'm lying on the bed in our room, sans socks of my own. Wife-and-sister combo appear. Sister says something to wife, who translates for me. "She likes your feet."
Whaaa? I smiled, then went back to reading my book. (Star Wars: Cloak of Deception. Very good novel.)
Next thing I know, Mei is tickling my foot. Knowing how "weird" my wife is about this, I wag my foot in an effort to get rid of her finger. She giggles and keeps at it. Eventually my wife notices, and, thinking I'm under "duress", joins her sibling. Now, my wife has all the tickling skill of a spastic hamster, and the "ordeal" ends quickly. But ya gotta wonder, now don'tcha.
Fast-forward a few weeks. Mei has gotten the occasional poke in jest by now numerous times, usually when I was tired of her pidgin-English wisecracking, which is cute, but can't go unpunished. 😀 We've decided to all hop the train to Qingdao, because my wife has business there. We're sharing a sleeping car.
For some reason, my wife has been ordering me to massage her feet the last few days. Decided that I'm actually good at it, and that she wants me to do it. Okay, no arguments here. The funny part is, though, that Mei wakes up (remember, sleeping car) and sees me doing it. Her eyebrows shoot up five feet. "You know how to do that?"
I answer in the affirmative. She watches, enraptured. "I want to know how to do that."
I says, "okay." She then goes back to sleep. I finish up with the wife, figuring my impulsive little sister was just talking to talk and not really serious. It happens. Even so, my hopes aren't very high; no way would she let me demonstrate on *her*, what with even breathing wrong near her exposed skin sending her into ticklish hysterics. She'd probably ask me to use my wife.
Later on, tho, my wife is asleep in the upper bunk, and I'm reading an X-Men novel. (The Jewels of Cyttorak, if you care.) Eventually I notice Mei is awake and trying to kick me by waving her socked foot across the car. I raised an eyebrow at her.
When she realizes she's got my attention, she says, "Massage." (as an aside, in her less-than-perfect command of the language, she pronounces it "massaji".)
My momma didn't raise no fool. Besides, my sister-in-law has beautiful, slender, graceful feet. I relieved her of her socks and gave her a reflexology treatment. Now, knowing she's amazingly ticklish, I had to be very careful - one wrong move and she'd be buried under the sheets, and my wife would be scolding me for tickling her again.
Now, in the beginning, I can see her lips twitching like she's gulping back a giggle or two, but I finally get into the rhythm and produce a good, firm, massaji. She's content, and relaxed. Bonding moment? Maybe! But anyway, eventually I decide to show her how it's done... but I can't do that without teaching her the words involved. So Mei gets a quick anatomy lesson; toes, heel, instep, ball, arch. Unfortunately, I "slipped" when describing the arch; I used the back of my index finger to rub the surface of her arch, from end to end, just to show it covered the whole area... and naturally, that tickled the hell out of her.
But here's the thing. She burst out laughing... but didn't move her foot. I wasn't holding her particularly firmly, so she could have pulled out of my grasp and taken off, if she'd so desired... but she did not even make the effort.
Go figure.
The rest of the train ride found me learning some more Chinese, and her picking up further English terms... including, of course, the differences between "tickling" and being "ticklish". And when I quizzed her later, she remembered all the parts of the foot with no prompting. 😀 She did tell me that she's been getting less ticklish over the years, and that when she was younger, her schoolmates couldn't even put a hand on her knee without making her jump.
I didn't tickle Mei much after that, although I gave her a few squeeze for a particularly spicy jest she made; it's hard to give it to her really good when her elder sister is hovering overhead ready to "rescue" her at any given moment.
But overall... ya gotta wonder about that girl. And I do believe, judging from the events that transpired on this trip, that I may have "tamed" China's Most Ticklish Girl. And for that, I am content.
sorry I didn't get to see ya, Likang... but our schedule was so full, we had no time to even consider meeting anyone other than family.
Phin
The amusing thing, actually, is that said wife's younger (27, looks 12 - go figure) sister is, without a shadow of a doubt, *the* most ticklish girl in all of China. I've said as much in the past, even posted how she's impossible to even touch, really... but this past trip, some interesting things happened, so I thought I'd share.
Now, as previously mentioned, my younger sister (I'll call her Mei) cannot stand to be tickled for *any* length of time. The first time I did so, on my last trip, she shot twenty feet into the air. The second, I received the most unholy of sounds for my effort. A mixed reaction, to be sure; I figured more "research" was necessary.
Well, the first time I had the chance this trip was when she, my wife, and I, were all sitting together in her dorm room in Beijing. I was lying on her bed, feet near the computer desk at the foot of the bed. My wife'd sat down to use the computer, and sassed me for reasons I don't recall, so I dug a foot under her arm. Ticklishness runs in the family, and my wife puts up with it once in a while. Mei laughed at my treatment of her older sib, so I figured hey, no big deal.
Mei eventually quipped something to me I don't recall; she's been studying English and we're actually able to communicate now, and of course she enjoys ribbing me. So when *she* sat down in front of the computer, she got the foot-under-arm treatment.
Now folks, I don't speak Chinese very well, but whatever she said in response to being tickled was not repeatable. She also gave me that indignant little "hmph!" thing Anime girls usually do, so I'm thinking okay, there's no hope for ol' Phin this trip. Don't want to make the girl angry - she didn't even laugh. To really drive the point home, my wife looks at me and says "she's afraid of tickling". Okay, okay, I get the point.
So the next day, we've arrived in Xuzhou, my wife's hometown. I stayed at home for some reason (we were bunking with her parents) while my wife and my in-laws went out. Mei stayed with me... basically, she'd vowed to never leave my side for the entire three weeks I was there because she wanted to improve her English. I have no problem with this. 😀
Now, Mei, for some reason, has decided that it's okay to be *very* physically affectionate with her brother-in-law (yo!). She held my hand, hugged me, put her head on my shoulder, and did all sorts of similar stuff the whole time I was there. So on this day we're chatting about something, and she informed me she'd done something for me that required me to thank her. Memory fails on what, exactly, but she was behind me as she put her head on my shoulder from behind and said, "thank me!".
My intent, of course, was to reach around and hug her "in reverse". But somehow, she shifted, and I could see in the mirror that my hand was about to go between her legs. My brain began to flail its' robot arms and shout "DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!" - would be *very* bad to continue on *that* course of action. So I shifted, using said mirror as a guide, to actually get her in the backward-hug as intended, and accidentally wind up tickling her in the ribs instead.
Here is where it gets interesting.
Rather than freak, swear at me in Chinese, or make an ugly noise... she laughed. That's not the funny part. What is...
...is that she tried to tickle me back.
Now, I'm not the most ticklish of persons, especially not in the clothes I was wearing (China's cold this time'a year!). But in the back of my nog, I'm thinkin', did my little sister, who is apparently "afraid" of being tickled, just have a favorable reaction and also try to initiate a tickle fight with me?
I didn't reciprocate, because I didn't want to push it. But that was definitely different.
Then, a few days later, I'm lying on the bed in our room, sans socks of my own. Wife-and-sister combo appear. Sister says something to wife, who translates for me. "She likes your feet."
Whaaa? I smiled, then went back to reading my book. (Star Wars: Cloak of Deception. Very good novel.)
Next thing I know, Mei is tickling my foot. Knowing how "weird" my wife is about this, I wag my foot in an effort to get rid of her finger. She giggles and keeps at it. Eventually my wife notices, and, thinking I'm under "duress", joins her sibling. Now, my wife has all the tickling skill of a spastic hamster, and the "ordeal" ends quickly. But ya gotta wonder, now don'tcha.
Fast-forward a few weeks. Mei has gotten the occasional poke in jest by now numerous times, usually when I was tired of her pidgin-English wisecracking, which is cute, but can't go unpunished. 😀 We've decided to all hop the train to Qingdao, because my wife has business there. We're sharing a sleeping car.
For some reason, my wife has been ordering me to massage her feet the last few days. Decided that I'm actually good at it, and that she wants me to do it. Okay, no arguments here. The funny part is, though, that Mei wakes up (remember, sleeping car) and sees me doing it. Her eyebrows shoot up five feet. "You know how to do that?"
I answer in the affirmative. She watches, enraptured. "I want to know how to do that."
I says, "okay." She then goes back to sleep. I finish up with the wife, figuring my impulsive little sister was just talking to talk and not really serious. It happens. Even so, my hopes aren't very high; no way would she let me demonstrate on *her*, what with even breathing wrong near her exposed skin sending her into ticklish hysterics. She'd probably ask me to use my wife.
Later on, tho, my wife is asleep in the upper bunk, and I'm reading an X-Men novel. (The Jewels of Cyttorak, if you care.) Eventually I notice Mei is awake and trying to kick me by waving her socked foot across the car. I raised an eyebrow at her.
When she realizes she's got my attention, she says, "Massage." (as an aside, in her less-than-perfect command of the language, she pronounces it "massaji".)
My momma didn't raise no fool. Besides, my sister-in-law has beautiful, slender, graceful feet. I relieved her of her socks and gave her a reflexology treatment. Now, knowing she's amazingly ticklish, I had to be very careful - one wrong move and she'd be buried under the sheets, and my wife would be scolding me for tickling her again.
Now, in the beginning, I can see her lips twitching like she's gulping back a giggle or two, but I finally get into the rhythm and produce a good, firm, massaji. She's content, and relaxed. Bonding moment? Maybe! But anyway, eventually I decide to show her how it's done... but I can't do that without teaching her the words involved. So Mei gets a quick anatomy lesson; toes, heel, instep, ball, arch. Unfortunately, I "slipped" when describing the arch; I used the back of my index finger to rub the surface of her arch, from end to end, just to show it covered the whole area... and naturally, that tickled the hell out of her.
But here's the thing. She burst out laughing... but didn't move her foot. I wasn't holding her particularly firmly, so she could have pulled out of my grasp and taken off, if she'd so desired... but she did not even make the effort.
Go figure.
The rest of the train ride found me learning some more Chinese, and her picking up further English terms... including, of course, the differences between "tickling" and being "ticklish". And when I quizzed her later, she remembered all the parts of the foot with no prompting. 😀 She did tell me that she's been getting less ticklish over the years, and that when she was younger, her schoolmates couldn't even put a hand on her knee without making her jump.
I didn't tickle Mei much after that, although I gave her a few squeeze for a particularly spicy jest she made; it's hard to give it to her really good when her elder sister is hovering overhead ready to "rescue" her at any given moment.
But overall... ya gotta wonder about that girl. And I do believe, judging from the events that transpired on this trip, that I may have "tamed" China's Most Ticklish Girl. And for that, I am content.
sorry I didn't get to see ya, Likang... but our schedule was so full, we had no time to even consider meeting anyone other than family.
Phin
