Ordinary Gweilo

Monday 17 November

It’s the middle of November, but the outdoor swimming pool is still open. Perhaps this is compensation for the delayed opening at the start of summer caused by the panic over SARS, but very welcome nonetheless. Swimming in the open air is much better than being inside.

Most people think its too cold for swimming outdoors, so there are only 2 or 3 other people in the pool, and the lifeguards are huddled under an umbrella wearing their jackets.

When I first came to Hong Kong, I stayed in a hotel that had an outdoor pool on the roof (which doesn’t narrow it down very much). A few days before Christmas I went up for a swim on a bright sunny day and got some very strange looks from everyone else in the lift, dressed up warmly in their winter clothes. Yes, in Hong Kong, if it’s 20 degrees it’s cold as far as most people are concerned.

When I moved out of the hotel and into an apartment complex, the place had a pool but it was only open for a few months in the summer and only until 7 pm. Apparently there are rules about how much lighting is required if the pool is to be open after it gets dark (Hong Kong is more subject to this kind of petty bureaucracy that you might believe based on its reputation as a bastion of free enterprise). The pool was really for kids, and too small and shallow for serious swimming (not that I am a particularly serious swimmer).

The next place we lived had no pool of its own, but it did have a good public pool nearby. Like most of the public facilities it was clean and well-maintained, but the changing rooms left something to be desired and security was a bit of a concern.

Then we moved again (this is Hong Kong, right) and this place had a small pool that was (hurrah!) open 24 hours a day. No lifeguards or attendants, no tickets, just a pool. Of course we still had the usual warped thinking that it is “too cold” in May and October to go swimming outside – only mad people would do that, right?

Now we live somewhere with better facilities and slightly more enlightened thinking, so I can go swimming outside at 8.30 p.m. in the middle of November. Sometimes life seems quite good!