Some people say I swim like a dolphin. A merman, if you will. Minus the gills and grace, I’ve been throwing myself in bodies of water since I was a kid. In fact, one of my first significant childhood memories is trying out for the swim team around the age of five or six. As I remember it (which is obviously exactly how it happened), my older brother had already made the team and I, being the dutiful younger sibling who had to do everything he did (but better), couldn’t wait to catch up with him. The coach, a man roughly the size of a humpback whale, declared that in order to have the honor of him barking at you from his floatable chair all summer long, you had to make it the entire way across the twenty-five meter lap pool without stopping or grabbing onto the white and blue lane ropes.
To the best of my recollection, I sailed across on my first try and was hailed as a swimming prodigy. Or, you know, sputtered and choked my way along what felt like the first leg of the Iron Man, only to find out that “swim team” was less of a team sport and more of an organized way in which parents of over-active children tire them out. Either way, I was hooked.
As an adult, I’ve been lucky enough to find a reasonably priced gym with a pool where I can do laps in every city I’ve lived. My go-to stress reliever, I much prefer the white noise that encases you while swimming over the hectic and sweaty cardio room, or god forbid the confusing and testosterone filled weight section, where I’m almost certain to be getting in someone’s reps or interrupting a lateral. Plus, where else can you hum “Part of Your World” on repeat and no one will notice? Exactly.
Which is why I was thrilled my apartment complex in Shanghai had a gym and a pool, conveniently located in the center of the courtyard. Shortly after moving in, I discovered that along with working out, my membership included access to a ping-pong room, dance studio, some type of table bocci situation, a reading room, a handful of study rooms and two piano practicing rooms. In the downtime from working on my Adonis-like figure, it seemed I would also be perfecting my dance moves, challenging a couple of my Chinese neighbors to ping-pong (I hear they’re not that good), and composing some original scores. I couldn’t wait.
On my first trip to the pool I found I had the whole thing to myself. Long used to swimming at the 14th Street YMCA in Manhattan and regularly sharing a single lane with up to four people, each more intent than the next on kicking me directly in the head, I couldn’t believe my luck. I quickly jumped in and rocked the Little Mermaid for the better part of an hour.
Almost box-shaped, the length is probably just over the standard twenty-five meters, and I was surprised to find out that it’s an indoor/outdoor pool. Set atop a hill in the compound’s large courtyard, the outdoor section is walled off from view, which is why I hadn’t seen it before. Glancing through a window of the closed garage-like door that separates the pool in the winter-time, I saw the outdoor area extended to include a jacuzzi, waterfall and a small sun-bathing island. Swank. I now envisioned my summertime Mandarin lessons with my tutor occurring pool-side, or perhaps in the jacuzzi. I could definitely get used to this.
Stopping somewhere around the half-hour mark to get some water, I noticed a lifeguard had appeared at the far end of the pool and was propped up in his chair, casually reading a newspaper. Go ahead and relax, buddy. I got this. Still, it was nice to know he was on hand so I wouldn’t have to interrupt my workout if an obnoxious, less-advanced swimmer joined me and decided to start drowning.
Ten minutes later, coming up for air during a daring lap of butterfly strokes – which aren’t exactly my forte and usually result in me looking like a newborn seal fighting for its life – I smelled smoke. I didn’t think anything of it at first; it was probably just an open window, someone smoking outside. But then, panting on the side of the pool just underneath the lifeguard chair, it was unmistakable. Was someone having a cigarette in the pool?
Yes, yes he was. My lifeguard, the man whose very title announced his duty to save lives, was nonchalantly exhaling all over my attempt at being healthy. It being an indoor pool in the middle of winter, the smoke quickly permeated the muggy air and pretty soon it felt like I was swimming in a giant, wet ashtray. There is no way Ariel would have put up with this.
Finishing out the rest of the hour, I slowly realized that before Marlboro Man stunk up the place, I hadn’t really noticed much of a smell. Strange. Also, the water felt different than other pools; less pool-y and more like a…lake? And then it dawned on me: the smell and feeling I was missing was chlorine.
Towling off, I confirmed my suspicion. Cigarette smoke notwithstanding, this definitely didn’t smell like indoor pools I was used to smelling. And my skin, which has grown accustomed to taking a beating from the insane amounts of pool chemicals I routinely subject it to, felt completely fine. This was not ok.
But there’s no way, right? There’s no way that a pool, potentially used by hundreds of guests in a relatively upscale apartment complex in the middle of Shanghai wouldn’t treat its water. Right? Because if that was the case, then I just spent the last hour swimming laps in what was basically an over-sized puddle. I had to investigate.
She's probably thinking about chlorine.
When I accosted the first person I figured could shed some light on the situation – my tutor – I didn’t want to come off sounding like some enraged, ethno-centric ass who couldn’t envision a different way of pool cleaning. Maybe the Chinese had mastered a more efficient, effective treatment that didn’t have as distinctive a scent as the chemical combination my Western nose was used to. Or maybe I just swam in a bunch of people’s urine. Either way, I wasn’t going to jump to any conclusions.
Directing him to my balcony the next morning, where you can see the courtyard and enclosed gym/pool/table bocci/dance studio compound, I gingerly asked him if he thought the pool used chlorine.
Ray: What’s chlorine?
Me: It’s usually in pools. To clean them.
Ray: Why? Is it dirty?
Me: Well, I don’t know. I couldn’t smell any chlorine.
Ray: Oh. It’s probably dirty.
And that was that. After trying a couple of more avenues (“But do you think they clean it? Maybe they use something else? Like magnets? Or chopsticks? No? Nothing?”) Ray seemed bored with the subject and headed back inside, where he proceeded to overload me with vocabulary that had nothing to do with pools or chlorine or urine.
I spent the next couple of weeks avoiding the pool, opting instead to tackle the weight section of the gym and finding they weren’t as complicated as I had previously thought. Turns out you just lift them up. Who knew? But soon my inner-dolphin needed some loving, and my Mandarin has slowly progressed to the point where I feel comfortable in small conversations about isolated topics. I can now order most foods without frantically pointing at pictures. I can give a taxi driver simple directions. I can comment on the weather. And I decided I could attempt to find out if my pool was clean.
Armed with the ridiculously useful Mandarin-English dictionary I recently downloaded on my phone, I headed to the gym’s front desk and began what I thought was a very pleasant conversation.
Me: Hello!
Front Desk Guy: Hello.
Me: It’s raining outside.
Front Desk Guy: What?
Me: Is pool clean?
Front Desk Guy: What?
Me: Do you have chlorine?
Front Desk Guy: What?
Me: I like to swim.
At which point I showed him the character for chlorine I had loaded on my phone’s screen as a backup and repeated my phrases, until a vague look of recognition came over the guy’s face and he nodded vigorously. Unable to really go much further in the discussion, we now just stood there smiling broadly and nodding at each other. It seemed either the pool was cleaned or he was very happy it was raining out. Regardless, I had my suit in my bag, my soundtrack in my head, and blind faith that someone, somewhere was treating this pool with a less-fragrant alternative to chlorine. I mean, they have to be, right?
Made in China 