Wish I knew what you were looking for.

Might have known what you would find.

And it’s something quite peculiar,

Something shimmering and white,

It leads you here, despite your destination,

Under the Milky Way tonight.

~ The Church, 1988 (Jansson and Kilbey)

When we lobbed through the doors of a provincial Chinese hot springs hotel which bore the name “The Milky War”, I did momentarily think of the famous 1980s song by The Church. Once inside, any association with inter-galactic imagery quickly vanished. The Milky Way Hot Springs Hotel in Changchun turned out to be an empty metaphor, the hotel’s interior didn’t correspond to anything remotely resembling the stars of any Solar System I’ve seen✥.

In one sense though I found the “Milky Way” was actually “out of this world”. It was nothing like any other hotel I had encountered before. The reception area was very opulent, very large, lots of gratuitous items of an aspiring luxurious lifestyle.

But we didn’t get a chance to absorb the Milky Way extravagance because we were whisked through to a changing area where our shoes were ‘confiscated’ and replaced by flip-flops (a variation on the usual practice in China of leaving your shoes at the front door). We were instructed to divest ourselves of our street clothes (which were bagged and deposited somewhere), and given gender colour-coded pyjamas to wear inside at all times. My “Corporate Vasco de Gamas” were a greeny-yellow colour with a circular pattern (all male guests wore the identical outfit), while my partner (and all of her sex) were decked out in a matching pink number with the same pattern. Already I was feeling like I was at an institution more so than in a resort. We were also issued with a plastic wristband (also colour-coded naturally!) with an activation device which we were to use to gain entry to the “mess hall”, to open our assigned lockers in the change rooms and to redeem our shoes.

Everywhere we went in the hotel it appeared that there were surplus numbers of staff (to state the bleeding obvious, this is not a country with a labour shortage problem)…possibly this explains why we were never issued with keys or swipe cards to our room. Whenever we wanted to get in we simply went to the staff desk on our floor where there was always someone eager and ready to hot-foot it to our room and do the perfunctory necessaries.

The ritualistic and communal nature of the resort became crystal clear when it came time for ablutions. This part of my adventure at the Milky Way has most resonance with The Church’s lyrics above. The guest rooms were devoid of showers, moreover they possessed none of the necessary utensils you associate with bathrooms (toothbrushes and paste, soap, etc). Instead we were ushered downstairs (still in our “jim-jam” uniforms) and I was told by the staff member manning the booth to “follow a boy” into the male showers area where “he would take care of my requirements” (already I was experienced a degree of disquiet at the possible implications of this). My partner was led into the opposite direction presumably with the same brief. Once inside the male zone of exclusivity, the ‘boy’✧assigned to me, using a combination of gestures and minimal Chinglish, exhorted me to strip naked in the common area. Having done so he quickly bagged my pyjamas, and, much to my consternation, deposited them somewhere just out of sight. He led me to another part of the male quarters where he motioned that there were showers, shampoo, soap dispensers, body lotion, etc – immediately after which he disappeared.

As I showered slowly my mind contemplated whether I would see my boy, or more much more importantly, my clothes again. Having showered, shaved and attended to my oral care with the utensils available, I searched around for a fresh towel. Fortunately there were several hundred of them, neatly folded and stacked in a wall recess just outside the shower cubicles. I backtracked my steps hoping to find my way back to where the attendant had hidden my jim-jams. With a stroke of luck navigating that ‘alien’ environment I was relieved to manage to locate both him and the clothes.

I quickly donned my Milky Way kit (modesty regained!), but noticed that just about all of the other male guests were very comfortable and relaxed, either strutting around the perimeters of the quarters or sitting and simply reading a newspaper – all with their tackle on full display, flapping or rocking gently in the breeze! Too relaxed I pondered! Perhaps it was my repressed Anglo-Saxon sensitivities to the fore, but I found all that prolonged open displaying of the “family jewels” a bit off-putting (that said, the thought crossed my mind that, unlike me, the Mardi Gras boys from Oxford Street back home would probably take to this environment with undisguised glee!).

In hindsight I think that all that male locker room uninhibited stuff was pretty harmless, just a bunch of testosterone-charged Chinese guys shooting the breeze together without the encumbrance of their Bonds (Chinese knock-off) briefs. Reassuringly, I didn’t spot any “raincoat deviant” types hovering around the showers while I was in the act of ablution. Although, as I was disrobing for my shower the following day my assigned boy thought it an opportune time (apparently!?!) to point out one of the other ‘boy’ attendants in the room and indicate (mainly non-verbally) just how incredibly deficient the unfortunate little guy was in the “shaging equipment” stakes. I don’t think my blank stare at the boy’s attempt at humour and the resultant sigh I emitted, registered anything with him as I waited for the slightly uncomfortable moment to pass. You can understand now why I tended not to loiter around the men’s shower area once I had taken care of the basics. “Something quite peculiar” indeed.

Our sojourn at the Milky Way hotel was calculated to take advantage of its special VIP day which it offered from time to time (we were eligible for the special deal by accumulating Milky Way bonus dockets). The big payoff was a special price (one night only) which included lunch and a feast fit for the Ming Dynasty.

So, when we got to the Milky Way dining area at 5 o’clock (a common time for Chinese to start tucking into supper), at the entrance between us and the food, there was a twenty deep block of pink and green pyjama–clad foodies already queued up for an onslaught on the “feast for an emperor“.

Once the human roadblock had dissipated, we were able to appreciate the advice of “a friend of a friend” to go light on the lunch. I was glad for the heads-up, otherwise I would never have had the room to go full-tonk at the Gargantuan culinary extravaganza on offer. The range and quantity of foods and beverages was mind-blowing (did I mention dessert?), so we were up for seconds, thirds, etc. Did we over-indulge? You bet ya! But we did try to pull back enough so that we could sample everything on offer.

Being unfamiliar with some of the Chinese specialities on the trays, it was somewhat of a trial and error process, hit and miss as to what appealed to my taste buds. In the spirit of new dining experiences I allowed myself to taste something in a white bottle called Maotai, an alcoholic white spirits drink distilled from sorghum and Baijiu, a clear grain-based liquor❅. The famous China brew came with a stellar recommendation, but frankly to me it was impossible to get down more than a few mouthfuls. The taste was not really silky smooth, more like liquorice-flavoured sickly Raiki with a sweet and sour texture.

The next morning we made for the hot springs waterworks on level four. After the disappointment of Fengcheng’s so-called hot springs resort back in Dandong territory, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Changchun resort was the real deal. I liked the way you could hop from one tub to another until you found a temperature that suited you. We started at a warm 36°C and gradually worked our way up as our bodies adjusted to the increased heat. But after five minutes in the 44°C pool we realised we were literally out of our comfort zone and retreated to a more tolerable temp.

Going to a ‘health’ resort – if you go there with serious ameliorative intent – is about getting into a “discomfort zone” for as long as the mortal flesh can bear it. So, after the hot tube workout we went upstairs and put ourselves through the exhaustive, draining exertions of the sauna. After the sauna had taken its pound of flesh, we retreated to our room for a rest. With the aid of a recuperative gin and tonic, we were ready to trade in our Milky Way corporation jammies for our civilian clobber, reclaim our footwear and return to the outside world.

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✥ nor for that matter apparently did the song’s origins…according to Steve Kilbey the name derives not from the gravitationally-bound system of stars in the Universe but from a fashionable Amsterdam music venue, Melkweg (Dutch for “Milky Way”) he used to frequent

✧ somewhat advanced along the age spectrum of boyhood, probably about thirty, early thirties

❅ also known as ‘Moutai’, branded as “Guizhoushengrenhuaishe” (from China’s Guizhou province)