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BONGERS are traditional massage tools in Japan. They’re good for breaking down muscle tension and stimulating circulation.

Most people store tension in their neck and shoulders, and that’s usually where BONGERS are most effective. However, they feel good all over (but don’t hit the kidneys!), giving an invigorating, Shiatsu-like massage. Their flexible shafts do all the work, allowing the masseur/se to BONG indefinitely without trying.

The Japanese call them magono te (“grandchild’s hands”). They also call them, onomotopoetically, pon pons, after the sound they make when struck against imitation leather jackets.

In Japan, children traditionally have BONGED their elders when they’ve come home after a hard day in the rice cake fields. The Chinese make them with tiny wooden balls and call them wife-beaters (affectionately, we hope). Korean Bongers have coiled spring shafts and wiggle like Olivia Newton-Jello. Eventually the learned doctors of the West discovered the principle behind Bongers’ percussive massage. They named it tapotement. We simply say they work like meat tenderizers.