Sometimes referred to as "spooning" or "coining" by English speakers, it has also been given the descriptive French name, "tribo-effleurage".

The Vietnamese term for this practice is cạo gió ( listen). This term translates roughly "to scrape wind", as in Vietnamese culture "catching a cold" or fever is often referred to as trúng gió, "to catch wind". The origin of this term is the Shang Han Lun, a ~220 CE Chinese Medical text on cold induced disease - like most Asian countries China's medical sciences were a profound influence in Vietnam, especially between the 5th and 7th Centuries CE. Cạo gió is an extremely common remedy in Vietnam and for overseas Vietnamese. There are many variants of Cạo gió. Some methods use oil balm and a coin to apply pressure to the skin. Others use a boiled egg with a coin inserted in the middle of the yolk. The egg is wrapped in a piece of cloth and rubbed over the forehead (in the case of a fever) and other areas of skin. After the rubbing, when the coin is removed from the egg, it will appear black.

It is also used in Indonesia. It is a traditional Javanese technique, known as kerikan (lit., "scraping technique") or kerokan, and it is very widely used, as a form of "folk" medicine, upon members of individual households.