Matt Schiavenza

Summer days in Kunming are usually rainy and disconcertingly cool, but recently the sun has made a few token appearances. A friend of mine spotted a nice, big swimming pool in the north of the city and I’ve lately been going there as much as possible.

Swimming pools in China are like pools anywhere, but there are some interesting little differences. Many pools are very strict about swimwear, particularly with men. Once in Fuzhou I got into an argument with a sour-faced old woman who insisted my knee-length suit wouldn’t do because they were shorts. She suggested I wear a Speedo, which I gravely informed her was an unacceptable proposition. Eventually I just pushed past and dived in. Problem solved.

Many pools are also finicky about swimming hats, which I actually like because they make me feel like I’m in a Monty Python skit. This is a more reasonable request, but the swimming pool I go to doesn’t insist. This is nice.

The swimwear choices here are, to say the least, odd. In California, young women typically wear fairly revealing bikinis while men dress in more modest trunks. In China, it seems to be the opposite. Even the beautiful wear fairly shapeless frocks that would have looked fashionable in say, 1934. The men, meanwhile, preen in their Speedos. Yesterday a group of young guys were trying to impress the assembled swimmers with a rigorous weightlifting routine. Is this Kunming, or Venice Beach?

Sun worshippers are also few and far between. When we laowai lie out to tan, the Chinese typically look at us as if we were a pack of daredevils. They typically ensconse themselves under umbrellas. One woman I saw yesterday walked around wearing a mask that she might have stolen from a Mexican wrestler.

And the locker rooms- my god. Dingy, smoky, and usually wet. I actually saw a guy simultaneously showering and smoking a cigarette, for what purpose I couldn’t ascertain.

But, for what it’s worth, the water is nice and not too warm or chlorinated, people are always friendly, and there are always enough available lanes. And if this cloud passes over right now, I’ll be right back over there.