I was told it was because Taiwanese hair is thicker than ours in the west and therefore more likely to get stuck in the filters.
We have a pool in our apartment complex and I’ve been told if I want to stick my head underwater, I’ll need to wear one. Luckily they haven’t said anything about me wearing board shorts in the pool cause that would just not fly otherwise.
If that is the reason I’d like to find some kind of document which mentions it to show them and in turn be allowed to not wear one no matter where my hair goes.
I mean, why is it that we don’t have to wear them in pools back home… I doubt it’s because our filters are smaller!
Everywhere here requires them. I have also wondered this and your post inspired me to look it up once and for all. It is to stop hair clogging filters. Why it’s different here, I dunno. It’s never negatively affected me.
Yup, it was quite funny going swimming with a couple of friends in Taipei: god love 'em, but one girl has leg hair and pit pubes like you wouldn’t believe, not to mention some serious ‘bikini’ tufts not entirely obscured by the suit, yet perfectly clean and tied back head hair must be covered … The guy looks like a yeti with a shaven head yet they didn’t see anything odd in making him wear a swimming cap. Honestly, the guy has more hair on his toes than his entire head. Ach well, it’s illogical and dumb, but I always figured you have to choose your battles. I used to love it when some charming older gentleman would spit in the drain by the pool then a wave from some chick who couldn’t swim would wash it all into the pool …
[quote=“TheLostSwede”]Some places even force you to wear goggles…
But I’ve never had any complaints about the kind of shorts I swim in, as I refuse the wear speedo’s[/quote]
After years of wearing beach trunks at the cheap public hot spring at Beitou, I was forced to buy their tight spandex trunks because, for some reason, they no longer allowed trunks with pockets to be worn.
That place is notorious for having nonsensical rules anyway, such as not sitting on the edge with your feet in the water. “It’s for your own good” is the apparent rationale. (Probably having to do with the paranoia the Chinese have about subjecting the body to heat and cold at the same time.)
Hmm… I don’t think this is the only country in the world where people do nasty things in public pools.
Back home they’ve had this problem with a certain age group wearing their underwear under their swimming trunks.
This might not seem like a huge issue, but it lead to a lot of faecal particles in the water which cause the filters in the pools to fail and some pools even had growth of some really nasty stuff in them. And let’s not forget the smell that all this caused…
So yeah, just wanted to say, it’s not all bad here
That place is notorious for having nonsensical rules anyway, such as not sitting on the edge with your feet in the water. “It’s for your own good” is the apparent rationale. (Probably having to do with the paranoia the Chinese have about subjecting the body to heat and cold at the same time.)[/quote]
I hate that one! Some of those are pretty hot or cold. I know you are supposed to just jump in but I can’t just plunge into a boiling hot / freezing pool.
It’s also gross how people seem to assume the showers are there to rinse the chlorine off yourself, not to wash your 35 degrees summer in Taipei sweat and scooter grime off of yourself before you jump into a pool full of strangers…
I guess it’s just one of those things. I’ve always just gone with it, and many times I’ve had to buy a cap because I always forget to bring mine. Although I don’t even notice the cap after I’ve been swimming with it a few minutes, and it probably makes you faster!
im starting to think the cap makes sense, because at our apt complex pool here in calif, i often run into long strands of hair while swimming. and if u dive to the bottom of the pool where the filter is (one of them) you can clearly see hair all around it. SO caps makes sense, but not if u are bald, but thats because the yokels are told “caps required” and thats they know , not why they are required.
not being able to sit on the edge is probably because its pretty comfy and then the whole sides of the pool could fill up with people sitting on the edge? who knows?
besides my gf thinks i look sexy in my swim cap, which makes me like them.
[quote=“TheLostSwede”]Hmm… I don’t think this is the only country in the world where people do nasty things in public pools.
Back home they’ve had this problem with a certain age group wearing their underwear under their swimming trunks.
This might not seem like a huge issue, but it lead to a lot of faecal particles in the water which cause the filters in the pools to fail and some pools even had growth of some really nasty stuff in them. And let’s not forget the smell that all this caused…
So yeah, just wanted to say, it’s not all bad here [/quote]
OK, so two things.
WTF?
WTF?
I’m not sure which part of this weirds me out the most – Swedes in the pool with their undercrackers on under their trunks, or Swedes wearing undercrackers that contain sufficient fecal matter to BLOCK fucking pool filters?
I have an unpretty picture in my mind’s eye. Very.
And presumably, these duststorms of dispersed fecal particulations aren’t limited to swimming pools. One can only hazard a guess at the state of the floors of buses and trains. Little brown shit-drifts piled up in the corners, and you can be sure that a dropped wallet STAYS exactly where it is. How d’you say “Pick it up? After it’s been down there? Are you fucking Norwegian or something?” in Swedish?
The automated translation is a bit poor, but the bit about dirty underwear has something to do with the water being 38 degrees warm in the jacuzzi which is pretty much like a cool wash cycle and this releases the faecal matter and urine into the water and this in turn releases nitrogen which causes bacteria to grow in the water and this is what really clogs the filters up, not all the pee and poo
On the other hand Mr Sandman, you might like this thelocal.se/20250/20090624/ and I think this should be legalized Worldwide, as it’s 2009, not 1809…
[quote=“Bassment Productions”]Is there an official explanation for this?
I was told it was because Taiwanese hair is thicker than ours in the west and therefore more likely to get stuck in the filters.[/quote]
I’ve never heard an explanation. Swim caps are mandatory in many countries across Asia, where I’ve lived or others have told me about it: Japan, Korea, the PRC, Philippines, Hong Kong, Thailand (though not everywhere), and probably elsewhere.
The single dumbest thing I’ve every encountered at pools was in Korea: “mandatory rests” at outdoor pools in the summer. At least fifteen minutes of every hour, everyone has to get out of the pool, no choice about it. Nobody ever gave me an explanation as to why, not even a feeble and lousy one.
As for anyone bothered by Speedos…cripes. :loco: I’ll curb my tongue from saying anything stronger except to that I’d worry more about those who object to Speedos than those who wear them. I’m not in either group.
Until you end up on a holiday destination with an “older” German gentleman wearing speedos that are made out of a material that changes colour between red and black and has what can only be described as a string up the “crack” you might not be too concerned about people wearing them or not, but once you’ve seen that, you’ll wish that shorts was mandatory
