From swimming across the Yangtze in the 60s to indecency scandals in the 80s: 30 years of swimwear history in China
On July 16, 1976, Huang Yang and his classmates left school and walked 10 miles to the Xunbiela River. They weren’t just skipping school. They had a purpose. On that day, thousands of people all over China were doing the same thing: swimming.
In the city of Wuhan alone, 5,000 people paraded to the Yangtze River. They were soldiers, factory workers, and students, and they all swam. The surface of water was adorned with red flags and propaganda banners.
The soldiers, holding their guns above their heads, swam in uniform and turned their pockets inside out so they wouldn’t fill with water.
Similar celebrations took place in all swimmable waters across the country, from the Pearl River in southern China’s Guangdong province to the Kunming Lake in Beijing’s Summer Palace.
These aquatic celebrations commemorated Mao Zedong’s final swim in the Yangtze River on July 16, 1966, when he was already 73 years old. At that point, he was still the most influential swimmer in China.
In 1956, Mao famously swam across the Yangtze River thrice, a feat immortalized in his heroic poem: “However hard the wind blows and the waves hit, I feel like I’m taking a casual walk in a peaceful courtyard.”
Ginger Huang is a contributing writer at The World of Chinese.
