Would You Like a Meat Cleaver Massage? - as part of the news and politics series by GeoBeats.

When it comes to showcasing human ingenuity, the massage industry folks have to be near the top.

For a truly unique massage technique, head on over to Taiwan where you can get a massage involving meat cleavers! That’s right; those giant, butcher type knives are being used to strike customers!

A night street market in Taiwan recently organized these meat cleaver massage sessions which entailed a customer sitting in front of a crowd while a ‘massage therapist’ hitting the scared soul with the blade end of the cleaver.

There are many forms of unconventional and sometimes painful therapies out there such as cupping, where cups are laid on the skin and set fire to in the hopes of better circulation.

Gua Sha is another technique - skin is literally scraped with the objective to improve the recipient's health.

If you want something less painful, you can go with the fish massage.

Or how about a tickle massage at CosquilleArte spa in Madrid.

Historical artifacts depicting various massage techniques go thousands of years back. And every culture seems to have a unique spin on such treatments. But probably none comes close to the novel approach of using meat cleavers as alternative therapy.