A Sport with Purpose

Mao Tse-tung likes to swim, and every year millions of Chinese are urged to emulate him. Mao several times has swum the Yangtze, so last spring, 20,000 people made a mass crossing of the same river. In fact, reports the magazine China's Sport, swimming has become an "activity involving millions of all ages, and it has served as a call to hundreds of thousands to forgo swimming pools and take the plunge into the natural and rougher waters of China's many rivers and lakes as well as the open sea."

Especially into the southern coastal waters near Canton. Last month 748 escapees from the mainland landed in Macao--the highest total in three years. Over half made it by swimming the rough tidal waters of the Pearl River estuary, buoyed up by their newly learned skill and by plastic life preservers supplied to participants in Peking's swimming campaign.

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