Swimming has long been a symbol of physical strength in China, yet outside the country's elite sports schools competitive swimming is not an option for ordinary Chinese who might want to take it up as a hobby. For most Chinese, pools are only a place to cool off, not to race. During the peak days of summer when the heat becomes unbearable, the pools explode into a riot of colors as thousands of people jump into it to escape the scorching heat. The popular slang expression used for going swimming is "boiling dumplings" because public pools are so crowded that all a person can do is stand on the spot.
Lack of swimming facilities is the main reason why pools are crowded in China, and because of this people cannot pursue swimming as a year-round hobby. “Many local governments cannot generate enough money from indoor pools to run them year-round”, said Zhang Yeduan, deputy head of the Hongkou Public Pool, Shanghai's largest.
But the number of facilities is increasing as incomes rise and privately run gyms with pools proliferate. Some of these pools are massive. The “Dead Sea of China” is a saltwater swimming pool located in Daying county, Sichuan province, inspired by the original Dead Sea in the Middle East. The pool covers an area of 30,000 square meters and accommodate up to 10,000 visitors at once. Another swimming pool in the Yao Stink district is able to accommodate a staggering 230,000 swimmers at one time.
A gigantic breakfast bowl of human soup. Photo credit
Do these pictures make you nauseate? It should. According to China’s Health Ministry report announced last year, out of 5,639 public swimming pools tested in 24 Chinese provinces, 10 percent of the pools exceed the safe limit for urea levels. In case you don’t know, urea comes from urine.
Research also determined that the total percentage of bacteria in a swimming pool can reach 92.3 percent while the rate of coli bacteria can be as high as 96.9 percent. The consequences of this can be fatal. In 2008, one man died and 3,158 swimmers critically poisoned when they swallowed the pool's water which was laced with the urine and fecal matter of 47,000 swimmers in the gigantic Mao Mao Municipal Pool in Beijing.
A toxicologist noted after taking a sample of the water that urine and fecal matter consisted of nearly 90% of the mix.
Crowded pools are also common in Japan. National Geographic photographer Michael Yamashita, who captured pictures of a typical summer day at one of the largest waterpark, the Tokyo Summerland, told My Modern Met:
It seems a number of viewers are horrified, appalled, nauseated and generally grossed out by the sheer number of swimmers squeezed into these mega-pools.
There's no question that given the heat, humidity and population of Tokyo in the summer, the throngs at any swimming pool there are going to, by definition, test the limits of crowd control and sanitation. Japan, however, is prepared for this and manages to keep everyone happy and cool no matter how jam-packed the pool - by moving the water rather than the swimmers. While not exactly conducive to laps, giant wave pools surge with swells a meter or higher, drenching stationary bathers so they don’t need to swim to cool off. Other pools feature circular courses with a current that keeps everyone moving together in the same, very orderly, direction. And of course, Japanese people, by tradition and habit, are arguably the cleanest – not to mention the most cleanliness-conscious – in the world. The water in these pools is clean enough to drink!
Yeah, right!
Keep this in mind: if you are visiting China or Japan, stay out of public pools.
Photo credit: Michael Yamashita
Photo credit: Michael Yamashita
Photo credit: Michael Yamashita
Photo credit: Michael Yamashita
made my day ♥
ReplyDeletemercy
Deletei have a hard enough time keeping an eye on my children in our own pool, i feel for these people and realize how much i take for granted.
ReplyDeleteespecially b/c all these kids look the same
DeleteI'd go for a swim >.>
ReplyDeleteI thought this was a joke. They're afraid of getting a tan, but they'll jump into an overcrowded pool? They must have superhuman immune systems!
ReplyDeletechina is my idea of hell on earth and this story confirms it. Awful.
ReplyDeleteYou have to see it to believe it. AND EVEN THEN...
ReplyDelete"urine and fecal matter consisted of nearly 90% of the mix."
ReplyDeleteThat sounds slightly spurious.
how do people not drown en masse pressed together like that?
ReplyDeleteOh my god, the first pictures of hell!
ReplyDeleteThis doesn't make sense: "Research also determined that the total percentage of bacteria in a swimming pool can reach 92.3 percent while the rate of coli bacteria can be as high as 96.9 percent."
ReplyDeleteDoes this mean that the pool is 92.3% bacteria by volume? Because that would be hideous.
Interesting article otherwise. :)
coli is 96.9 percent of the 92.3 percent total bacteria level.
DeleteStatistics... always weirder that life :)
All the pee that must be in that water!!! Ewwww!
ReplyDeleteThey would have so much more room if they ditched the inner tubes, but that's probably the only way t keep other people outside of your "bubble".
ReplyDeleteThe tubes are used because no one knows how to swim, remember.
Deletereally putting the "poo" in pool.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the last part, you do realize that China and Japan are not the same country, nor are they run by the same government. The last quip ("
ReplyDeleteYeah, right! Keep this in mind: if you are visiting China or Japan, stay out of public pools.") about Japanese pools is therefore superfluous. The toxicology tests, diseases, and the death refer to Chinese pools. The only information you bring in about Japanese pools is praising them, and their visitors, so I don't understand why you advise against people visiting pools in Japan.
My reply is based only on the information that the author provided, and I am pointing out a discrepancy in the logic.
Where are they going with those tubes?
ReplyDelete"Yeah, right!
ReplyDeleteKeep this in mind: if you are visiting China or Japan, stay out of public pools."
Um, China and Japan are different countries...
Why are they called swimmers when all they can do is stand in one place?
ReplyDeletewhat does it mean exactly: "the total percentage of bacteria in a swimming pool can reach 92.3 percent"
ReplyDeletethat would be a solid, or at least a slushy goo. only 7.7% water?
why is nearly every person in these photos using an inner tube?
ReplyDelete"if you are visiting China or Japan, stay out of public pools"
ReplyDeleteSo despite suggesting that Japan's pools are perfectly clean, and I imagine they're as sanitary as any western pool (if not more so from what I've seen), you've decided to deride them as well?
The Nat Geo article was about Japan. The water quality testing was done in China. Last I heard these were two different places.
ReplyDeleteThe crowdedness is enough to warrant a "stay away from pools " warning about Japan.
ReplyDeleteSoylent Green...
ReplyDeleteWhat is the incidence of rape in these pools?
ReplyDeleteNo wonder China had to implement a one child per family limit........
ReplyDelete"if you are visiting China or Japan, stay out of public pools"
ReplyDeleteI think this line is saying to stay away from the pools in Japan due to how insanely crowded they seem to be. And of course for those Chinese pools, it seems you'd have to be able to survive the crowds AND be immune to every bacterial infection in the universe.
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ReplyDelete( •_•)>⌐■-■
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all pee and no H.
Someone could drown in one of those pools and no one would know it for days.
ReplyDeleteWith the number of people in those pools, I would think that if everyone didn't have their own tube it would be very easy for a person to end up buried under the crowd around them and drowned. The tubes might seem like they're just taking up room, but I would bet they probably help keep everyone's heads above water while they're being pressed in and shoved around like that.
ReplyDeleteI think I will stay in my private hot tub (that i Keep cold) in Singapore. Unreal - think I will pass on swimming.
ReplyDeletethis is so grossed, after they swam in that pool they all have the types of skin disease...im not going to swim in there ever!
ReplyDeleteI swam in public pool in Hokkaido, Japan, in late '80's. no way was it as crowded as these. my professor friend swam there often for his health. We could do laps.
ReplyDeleteBut how sad that there are too many people now!
that is gross
ReplyDeleteLet us set fire to these hellish pits of pure communistic piss!
ReplyDelete1 question, why the hell are they yseing rubber rings?
ReplyDeleteImagine how many perverts and pedos just swim around having fun feeling up young ladies and children? I wonder how many girls get pregnant while swimming...
ReplyDeletebeatiful..
ReplyDeleteSo, 92.3% bacteria + 90% urine and fecal matter... That's a 182.3% total. Great stats! Even assuming that part of the 90% excrements is bacteria, we're still over 100% here. Where's the WATER in all this?!?
ReplyDeleteYou will become a great engineer. No doubt about it. ;)
Deleteaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa like big buts and ia can not lie
ReplyDeleteSaves money by not having to build diving boards.
ReplyDelete