Massage in Hong Kong is a favored leisure time activity among many of the City’s citizens and nearly half million expats. There are so many types of massage businesses in this city, ranging from the upscale spas, leisure time bath houses and saunas, all the way down to the local “leisure” massage places offering a cheap massage and sometimes something extra.
The first subject Massage Salon is Mei Gong Massage. Do not let the small entrance fool you as the salon is mostly on the basement level of a business building. The facility is a labyrinth of private and semi-private rooms, offering a range of services from facials, manicures and pedicures, various full body massages as well as foot massage.
The hosting staff, who greet guests at the main entrance, are typically quite friendly as they guide guests in from street level and introduce a large Chinese and English menu of services. Mei Gong’s location makes their services extremely popular with several international airlines’ crews who stay at the hotel regularly, as well as many of the hotels other guests. This practice obviously has given Mei Gong ‘s staff some experience in dealing with foreign customers. Guests pick the service and they are escorted to a private room, some for up to 3 people.
The massage rooms range from a bit small fro the claustrophobic, to spacious enough for several people. Appointed fairly well, massage table sheets are replaced for each guest. Some have rails on the roof for walking on backs, others have lower wide tables for Thai style where they lift the guest to stretch them out. All of these services require the guest make a change of clothing. Guests are offered a loose fitting Pajama-like top and bottom for a more comfortable massage.
Services reviewed for this article include a 90 minute Thai-style massage, a 60 minute traditional Chinese medicinal massage, and a 60 minute oil massage.
The Thai style massage starts with a standard finger pressure massage and then eventually works in to deeper tissue and stretching movements to relax tension.
Only select masseuses and masseurs do this massage as it is quite physically challenging for them to perform certain movements, especially ones that require them to lift the guest off the massage table entirely to allow one’s back to be stretched out. This style is certainly not for the weak of heart. But for those who enjoy a deep tissue and good stretch style massage, this would be a good one. Masseuses #42 and 82, and masseur #92 all do a fantastic job.
The standard 60 minute finger pressure Chinese styled massage is the staple for most Chinese massage places. It consists of finger pressure applied to the body’s many pressure points and reflexology points to facilitate relaxing the muscles. It also requires some hard pressure at times to remove “knots” and such. Mei Gong’s trains all the masseuses and masseurs to do almost a uniform quality massage of this type. Keep in mind one can ask for the pressure to be diminished if its too deep pressure. Recommended masseuses for this #19, #35, #67, and #91. For anyone who needs a real deep tissue or Chinese medicinal massage, try masseur #92 as he is traditionally trained in the arts.
Oil massages are more the staple massage back in the US but before anyone runs in and strips off one’s clothes, make sure they give you the PJ like outfits so that its easier on the massage and such, and the modesty of the masseuse. Keep in mind that it is not common practice to strip down for any sort of massage here in Hong Kong so even for the oil massage, the masseuse will work around the light gown they provide. The Oil massages at Mei Gong use different mineral oils to allow smooth strokes for the massage as well as get absorbed into the skin for other health related advantages. Recommended masseuses include #82, 30, and 91.
After several visits to Mei Gong massage, one thing stood out very clearly, their massage service levels were consistently good due to good training but their reception staff was a bit new and so it did contribute to some initial miscommunications such as providing the wrong requested service or even masseuses, but nothing catastrophic. The facilities themselves are satisfactory with exception to the back rooms where their Climate control is a bit lacking and so the rooms never quite cooled down. (this can easily be avoided by asking for a change in room.)
