Kaity Tong
12:09AM | February 19, 2009 | comments: 7563

Kaity Confesses: I Can't Swim!

So, many people have been asking me, "Is it REALLY true that you can't swim?!" I felt I needed to address this looming issue before it got so big, there'd be no stopping it. I've had this happen to me before, so I know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, this all began when I hijacked Watkins' blog when he was on vacation during Christmas. I was complaining about something or other and somehow veered off into a story about how I was forced to pass a WRITTEN swimming test in order to graduate from college. A well-respected center of learning, but really hardcore about their long-established rules! Katharine Hepburn went there (long before me) and I was told she got kicked out after she was caught swimming in the nude in the library cloisters pond. I love this story. If it's apocryphal, I don't want to know.

Again, I digress. In answer to those of you whose jaws hit the floor when you found out there are grown people, like me, who never mastered the art of swimming, let me try to explain. I blame my parents. That's always a good place to start. It's all my parents' fault that I am afraid of the water.

I was born in Tsingtao, China and arrived in the United States with my little brother and my parents when I was but a wee thing. Okay, four. We sailed over on the USS Cleveland, as I recall, and there is a black and white picture of me looking fearfully into the swimming pool the sailors had onboard ship. I was just a little kid, but I remember thinking, the ocean is not water enough for these people? They need to put a hole on a ship and fill it with MORE water? I wasn't sure I would be comfortable living in a new, unknown country with people who thought like this. The sailors were kind to us, though. I remember that also. They gave me and my brother lime ice cream whenever we threw up. And that was often. The sailors never stopped being nice.

The rest of our trip across the United States to Long Island, NY was a dry one, and vomit-free.

My story is a typical immigrant story. After living with friends in Long Island for several months, my father, a colonel in the Chinese Army, was assigned to Washington, DC and we settled in a large, roach-infested apartment building. The only thing my parents cared about for me and my brother was for us to succeed in our new adopted home. We went to public schools and were expected to come straight home and study. Just study. My parents didn't know anything about extra-curricular activities. What the hell was Latin Club or swimming lessons? Piano lessons we got; We needed to be cultured. Weekends were spent studying Chinese so we wouldn't forget our native tongue. But time for swimming? Very rare.

There was one summer, when I was about 8 and my brother 5, I recall my parents dropped us off at the local public pool for a couple of hours. They just left us there. On our own! With screaming out-of-control kids all around us! I got into the shallow end just to see what this was all about and immediately got dunked by some guy with a ducktail greasy hairdo, and swallowed something disgusting that I to this day have not identified. And don't want to.

I think this experience affected me. Yes, I do. I really never got into the water again, until I went to Bryn Mawr. I don't think they mention the swimming test requirement in their beautiful brochure. I'm sure if I had known ahead of time that I would not be allowed to graduate without passing a swim test, I would have gone to Swarthmore.

Well, I have to stop now. Time to prepare for the newscast. I don't know if what I wrote explains why I cannot swim, but it's a beginning.

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Comments: 7563

Posted by Ari Minkov at March 6, 2009 12:57 PM

Dear Kaity,

Don't feel bad about not being able to swim. I can't swim either. Besides, I think that you are a beautiful, well aged woman with a pleasant voice and personality! I also always enjoy watching your cameo appearence in the classic movie "Moscow on the Hudson."

Sincerely,

Ari Minkov

P.S. An aquintence of mine that went to Swarthmore told me that when he went there that they too had a swim test requirement. Oh well.

Hello Kaity,
I can swim!

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Posted by Ari Minkov at July 30, 2009 4:51 PM

Hi Kaity,

Your latest blog is interesting, but, as I stated in the comment section to your February 19th blog, Swarthmore (like Bryn Mawr) has a swim test requirement. Considering that fact, why would you want to go there? Is it because of their Quaker values?

Ari

P.S. Happy Birthday (sorry that I didn’t wish it to you sooner).

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Posted by Pete at August 3, 2009 12:09 AM

You'd better learn how to swim before something tragic happen. I know of several people like you who regretted not learning.

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Posted by teri at September 12, 2009 2:46 PM

I know how you feel. My family is from the West Indies and I am deeply afraid of water which shocks people because I'm a pretty pushy Type A New Yorker, but not when it comes to water. I went to the Virgin Islands as a child and someone tried to teach me and when he let go I went under and that was it for me. I ran like hell to the shore, never to return again. When I was applying to college I considered Cornell until I read something about passing swimming. High school gym has left me traumatized so any swimming clause was a deal breaker! At Stuyvesant I had a friend, Doris Choi, who told me that she was going to the Y after school to learn how to swim. I remember being amazed at her guts. As for me, ain't happening.

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