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Agence France-Presse

A long-standing tradition has been revived in the river city of Wuhan in central China after months of coronavirus lockdown.
Daily swims in the Yangtze River have resumed, with a steady flow of hardy men and women wading into its brown waters, even in winter temperatures of about 15 degrees Celsius (60 degrees Fahrenheit).
Standing beside a large picture of Mao Zedong, retiree Shen Peihua recalled the moment she resumed her daily swim in the mighty river. “I felt so happy, it was like being reborn,” the 68-year-old said.

The tradition predates Mao, but was embedded in Wuhan’s consciousness in 1966 when the then-73-year-old founder of communist China launched a political comeback with a carefully staged swim to prove he was in robust health.
The riverbank is also usually alive with people singing, dancing, flying kites, fishing or simply enjoying a romantic walk.
All that stopped when the coronavirus emerged in Wuhan about a year ago. The city of 11 million people was placed into a strict lockdown in January that dragged on for 76 days.
Some even feared the waterway might somehow be carrying the virus, which killed nearly 4,000 people in Wuhan, according to Chinese figures.
“We did not swim for a few months after the city was closed and basically did not swim here from the end of January to the beginning of April,” Shen said.


At about 6,300km (4,000 miles) and stretching from Tibet to the East China Sea, the Yangtze is the third-longest river in the world. Together with a tributary, the Han River, it slices through Wuhan, and the two waterways are the central city’s lifeblood.
Standing in her swimsuit and now gleefully back to her daily afternoon routine, Shen gestured to a life-size picture of a waving Mao on the riverside. She did not learn to swim until she was in her 50s and, like many others, had been inspired by him several decades earlier, she said.
“We saw that chairman Mao in his 70s was still swimming in the Yangtze so we learned from him to swim in the big waves of the river. We’re sons and daughters of a river city and people living by two rivers and four banks. Having such a good source of water, we must swim in the Yangtze River.”
Mao made it famous but, according to locals, people traditionally swam in the river at Wuhan, which is fiercely hot in summer, because there used to be no pools.


But even on a recent damp afternoon dozens of swimmers – most of them male and in late middle age or older – stripped down to their trunks. As a small crowd watched, the swimmers packed their belongings in orange flotation devices, did some stretches, then plunged into the river.
Some swam close to the riverbank in organised groups. Others went alone or in pairs heading for the middle – even as vessels plough the waterway, which is up to 2,000 metres wide.
Many of the swimmers belong to amateur teams and, underlining just how ingrained swimming in the river is in Wuhan life even today, there is a museum celebrating it.
Zhang Jianmin is another who puts his enduring good health down to his bracing swims in the Yangtze. But the 65-year-old also rescues people who get into trouble in the water, usually those who fall in.
Zhang leads Wuhan’s river rescue team, which has about 2,000 men and women, all volunteers. It lost its founder to coronavirus, something Zhang is not keen to dwell on. He is more willing to talk about the 700 people they have saved from drowning since the team was established in 2010.
Zhang’s most memorable rescue was a little boy who tumbled into the river, and his father – who had jumped in to save him but also could not swim. “I was sitting here, next to the water, after swimming. We could see the father hugging his child but we could see their heads going up and down (under the water) so we jumped in and I was in first.”
It was chaotic, and not a textbook rescue, but the father was still conscious and able to throw the boy towards Zhang. “The kid was really scared and he clung onto my neck so hard that I couldn’t breathe,” he said.
“I was out of breath, swimming for the riverbank. Fortunately, it wasn’t far. If it was a little farther, we might have died.”


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Daily swims in the Yangtze stopped in January when Wuhan went into lockdown, which lasted 76 days. Photo: AFP

In this picture taken on November 20, 2020, a group of people prepare to swim in the Yangtze River in Wuhan, in Chinas central Hubei province. - The riverbank is usually alive with people singing, dancing, flying kites, fishing or simply enjoying a romantic walk, all that stopped when the coronavirus emerged in Wuhan about a year ago and the city was placed into a strict lockdown that dragged on for 76 days. (Photo by Hector RETAMAL / AFP) / To go with AFP story China-health-virus-Wuhan-river-swimming, FOCUS by Peter Stebbings

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China

People & Culture


Daily swims in the Yangtze River have resumed for many residents of the city where Covid-19 first emerged
For one retiree, inspired to swim by Mao Zedong, to be back in the water ‘is like being reborn’



Daily swims in the Yangtze River have resumed for many residents of the city where Covid-19 first emerged.


China society