Article and Photography By BECKIE LOEWENSTEIN
Rivers do not have to be clean to attract fishers, bathers, and swimmers. The Songhua River of Harbin, China, is no exception. Newspapers and television stations in Harbin warn that the pollutants in the river will bring about illnesses of the skin. Nevertheless, Harbin’s urban dwellers depend on the river for summer leisure activities.
Entire families sojourn out to the river to catch fish, wash laundry, scrub clean their pet dogs’ fur, bathe, and swim. Bathers scrub their bodies down with soap. Many do not know how to swim. They sit at the edge of the river to soap their skin, and then rinse off with handfuls of water.
The swimmers peel off their clothes down to underpants. After smoking a cigarette or two, they wade into the shallows. They scrub their faces and ears with a bar of soap; the soap bubbles all dissolve during the dive into the murky depths.
The Songhua River veteran swimmers notice the difference in water quality. Fifty-two year old Jiao taught himself how to swim in the Songhua River at eight years old. Every Saturday afternoon he leisurely swam two thousand meters down the river and back again. Playing with his elementary and middle school friends in the waters provided happy memories.
The river was wider and deeper before Harbin's urbanization along its banks. The heavy water usage of urban dwellers has dried up surrounding wetlands. Many of the small streams that used to branch off from the river have disappeared. Two years ago sand banks began to appear in the middle of the river.
A clean river brings in more fish and swimmers. However, in the 1980s the water quality of the Songhua River took a plunge for the worse. Factories pumped chemicals into the river without any supervisory controls. The pollutants that did not wash past Harbin left an unsanitary environment in their wake.
Now chlorinated swimming pools provide a safer, cleaner option. However, there are not enough swimming pools in Harbin to meet the demand for places to swim. The city has fewer than one hundred and fifty swimming pools to accommodate a population of over ten million.
The summer and winter seasons are the busiest times of year for swimming pools. Swimming pools at universities provide swimming sessions for the community, too. Each day the pool at Heilongjiang University accommodates 600 to 1000 people, says Carrey, the lifeguard.
During the summer the water is not heated. The water feels warm enough for an hour. But after the skin begins to wrinkle, swimmers begin to shiver, their lips turning a shade of purple.
The polar swimming of Harbin's winter is only for the brave and physically fit. During the winter swimming in a heated pool is a much more attractive option, especially since the entrance price is the same year round.
The entrance fee to swimming pools does not provide a viable option to all. Fifty-seven year old Shi Suo Cheng bathes in the river because it is free and accessible. He does not possess a personal shower at home. He has been swimming in the Songhua River since he was ten years old. He hopes to teach his grandson Du Bi Chen how to swim in the river once he reaches seven or eight years old.