Gua sha

Gua sha
Skin showing characteristic petechiae after gua sha treatment
Chinese name
Chinese	刮痧
Literal meaning	"scraping sha-bruises"
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin guā shā IPA [kwá.ʂá] Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization gwaat-sāa Jyutping gwaat3-saa1 IPA [kʷat̚˧.sa˥] Southern Min Hokkien POJ [掠痧lia̍h-soa / 剾痧khau-soa] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 1: 掠) (help) Tâi-lô [掠痧lia̍h-sua / 剾痧khau-sua] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 1: 掠) (help)
Vietnamese name
Vietnamese alphabet	cạo gió
Chữ Nôm	𠜯䬔
Literal meaning	to scrape wind
Filipino name
Tagalog	kerokan

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Gua sha (Chinese: 刮痧), also known as kerokan in Indonesia or cạo gió in Vietnam, is a traditional East Asian medicine practice involving the use of a smooth-edged tool to scrape the skin, producing light petechiae (small red or purple spots caused by minor capillary bleeding). Practitioners believe that this technique releases stagnation or "unhealthy" elements from the body, particularly from areas of muscle soreness, stiffness, or injury, promoting blood flow and healing. Rooted in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), gua sha has been used for centuries across East and Southeast Asia and has gained global attention in modern times, though it remains classified as a pseudoscience due to a lack of scientific evidence supporting its efficacy.

The practice is known by various names in English, such as "scraping therapy," "spooning," or "coining," and in French as tribo-effleurage (friction-stroking).^[1] While it is widely practiced for pain relief, relaxation, and treating symptoms like colds or fatigue, gua sha can cause adverse effects, ranging from mild skin irritation to rare but severe complications.