Swimming pool and locker room etiquette

Life Health & Fitness
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I’ve read a few of the threads here about swimming pools, and the rather strict life guards. I’ve got that you must wear Speedos, goggles and a swim cap, and, unlike a lot of westerners, I’m fine with that. :slight_smile:

I like to swim laps, and plan to visit some pools while in Taiwan, and would rather not offend by breaking some written or un-written rule. So here goes what I’ve gathered so far from reading the forums and elsewhere. Please correct anything I’ve gotten wrong, or add any info I’m missing.

There are usually some fast lanes, and circle swimming is the rule, even with just two swimmers in it. Do they operate with fast, faster and fastest lanes?

You’re expected to take of your shoes before entering the locker room, and to not go wet into the locker room (make the locker room floor wet). Are there places you can store your towels while you’re swimming, so you don’t have to go to your locker to fetch it? Are there places you can dry off?

Where I’ve come a bit short is shower and locker room setup, and this tends to vary a lot from country to country. I know you’re support to shower before entering the pool, but do people shower naked or wearing their swimwear? Do I have to do the towel dance to get changed, or can I just get changed (I’m not shy)? Do the pools generally provide soap, or do I have to bring my own?

Are the rules different for the hot springs/spas/bath houses, than for the pools?

Am I forgetting something I should know, before visiting a swimming pool in Taiwnan?

:swimmer:

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A post was merged into an existing topic: babyblatterflames

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Every place I’ve been too is a little different. I don’t wear speedos and googles are not required. Street shoes are sometimes dropped off somewhere before entering the pool area or locker room. Having slippers is helpful especially if the pool is outdoors and wintertime and the walking area is wet. Lockers could be located in the locker room or some places just have doorless boxes along the wall to stuff with your things and towel. There are not always places to lock up important items but at least you can keep an eye on the boxes while swimming. There are usually showers both inside the locker room and outside. It’s nice to do it outside in case someone is watching and complains if they didn’t see you shower before entering pool. Soap availability varies so bring some. Rules are all slightly different in springs, spas, bathhouses. Bring your own towel as many places have none available even for purchase. If there are any tubs with sulfur or mint or chinese herbs, you are supposed to rinse off after using them and returning to the regular pool.

That’s my take. Others surely will have more.

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I’ve only been a regular at one pool over the past few years, and I don’t really remember the customs at others, but here’s what I can tell you:

Don’t count on soap. But one lovely thing is that it’s not unusual here to have individual shower stalls, with doors and all, so you being shy or not isn’t an issue. In the pool I go to, there are no open showers - they’re all in stalls. I’ve only seen a guy walking around naked once (a foreigner who presumably didn’t know the etiquette?), and he probably shouldn’t have been doing that. There’s an open area where people dry their hair and especially their feet (?!), put on shoes, button up shirts and tuck in and all that, and that’s certainly not considered “Men-only” space: female pool workers walk through it somewhat often, and when kid lessons are happening, most of the mothers are in there helping their kids get changed.

For storage: the place I go to has lockers where you set the combination. But often I’ll only have my keys anyway, and on those days I just leave my bag and towel on a bench beside the pool. There are lockers both in the men’s change room and by the side of the pool.

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Circle swimming is the rule here, yes. There’s always a designated fast lane, but as someone else has noted, this is often ignored. And the average swimmer in your average pool won’t be very fast. I recommend going at off times, like right at 6 pm (dinner time) on weekends. You could also go to an outdoor pool during the winter months!

There is always some kind of locker set up (usually coin operated lockers- 10NT). This may or many not be inside where you change so be ready for that.

Bring your own soap and towel.

No matter which pool I go to (and I go to a good handful of different ones), I change in the general area and don’t go out of my way to find some kind of stall to change in. I’m always in a hurry so it’s usually only a few seconds of nakedness! At some pools, there are guys walking around naked, drying their hair and privates naked (no joke), etc. At other pools, almost everyone seems to head off somewhere to change. I stopped trying to keep track and just change quickly. In order not offend anyone, I make it fast.

Don’t know about the hot springs. I hate being in really hot water for long periods.

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I’ve usually just left my towel near the side of the wall or near a bench. I don’t think anyone will steal it.

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I went swimming today at Youth Park swimming pool, so I figured I’d share my experience here for anyone else who finds this thread at some point. :slight_smile:

I took bus 223 I think (you can also take nr 12) from Ximen to the pool, it stops next to the golf driving range, and the pool is just a short walk into the park from there. All the bus schedules were in Chinese, but Google came to the rescue, and when the bus turned up the text on the front alternated between Chinese and English, and it said Youth Park.

The pool is rather old and worn down, but fine for swimming laps. There was literally no information or signs in English anywhere in the pool, and I don’t think any of the staff knew a word of English either, but a nice life guard pointed me to the correct locker room, and to where the showers were. I think I was the only foreigner there. You need 2x10$ for the lockers, and you don’t get those back when you open it again. You leave your shoes outside, though I took mine with me as I they are nice expensive sneakers, and I didn’t want to have to go barefoot back to the hotel. :slight_smile:

The lockers are small and don’t look very secure, but they’re enough to fit your clothes and even shoes in. There are stalls with curtains for getting changed in, though I don’t think everyone uses them. At least there was a naked older guy in the locker room getting dressed when I arrived.

The showers are the same, in stalls with curtains. You need to bring your own soap and shampoo, as there is none there. I took my towel with me to the pool, and I noticed there were lots of bags and towels on the benches around the pool, so I guess that’s what most people do.

The pool is a good size, 50m with 8 lanes, and it was relatively empty, which meant I had a lane to myself most of the time. About half the lines were marked up, while half was open. There were some signs on the lanes, but I have no idea what they said. :slight_smile: Circle swimming seemed to be the rule. I choose the furtherst lane, and swam for around a mile. The water was kind of greenish and murky, so I could hardly see across the width of the pool, let alone the length of it. A sign on the wall said it was 28C an pH 7.2.

At one end of the pool there is a nice, but old looking, spa section, with faux rock formations above it and different kinds of massage water jets, plus a 40C tub you could relax in. This was actually very nice for my stiff neck.

As to swimwear, everyone was wearing a swim cap, also in the spa section. And most of the guys were wearing Speedos (either the small ones, or the squar shaped ones). I saw one guy wearing speedos that went down to just above his knees, I think they call them jammers, and one guy wearing loose fitting swim shorts. The swim guards didn’t seem to mind, but maybe they just go after foreigners. :wink: I was wearing Speedos, well Funky Trunks…but it’s the same thing just a different brand, and a swim cap, so the swim guards were both helpful and friendly.

Oh, and there was one guy there leaving the pool when I arrived, that was wearing the tiniest swimwear I’ve seen on anyone ever, and he wasn’t particularly small either so it looked extra tight. He was literally showing an inch and a half of his butt crack, and it was riding so low that it hung only just above his privates. I actually found this kind of funny, and not sexy at all. :smile: The pool is apparently somewhat of a cruising ground for gays, especially in the summertime when the outdoor area is open, though I didn’t see any any signs of it…short of that one guy baring a bit too much.

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Yeah, what lostinasia said. In Australia there is no way I could rock up to a pool for the first time in six months and stick it out in the fast lane of a busy pool for an hour, but that is where I find myself in a typical Taiwanese pool after such a long layoff. I’d say the hardest part about lap swimming in Taiwan is finding a pool with empty lanes, or genuinely fast fast ones. Recently I’ve been scootering out to an inconveniently located 25 meter pool simply because it is always empty and I don’t need to worry about such idiotic ‘traffic’ in the pool.

The understanding of sports science is fairly dismal here. Taiwanese seem to equate elevating one’s heart rate with risking death. In many public parks you can find what look like weights machines without weights, lest anyone inadvertently perform some exercise.

Enthusiastic hand clapping by geriatrics is about as intense as things get here.

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I went swimming i Kaoshiung too at the Sanmin swimming pool (高雄市立三民區游泳池). It’s a short walk from the central station.

This pool was a bit strange. Possibly even a bit more worn down than the one in Youth Park. It had no lockers. You had to bring your stuff with you, and either put it pool side, or in shelves provided by the pool. The showers were big cubicles, where you could both dress and shower.

The pool has three time slots when it’s open to the public, in the morning, midday, and at night. I went at night, around 19:30. The pool itself is a outdoor 50m pool. It’s rather shallow, at 1.1m at the ends, and around 1.5m in the middle. There were not that many people there, so there was good enough space to swim, even though there were no marked lanes. That said, the pool was not great for swimming, as there were a lot of waves in it. The edges of it are flat, with no spill-over to reduce the waves. I swam in the furthest lane once again, but when swimming freestyle, I found it was best to only breathe facing the wall. It was functional, but not great.

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I’m back in Norway, but did go swimming again before I left Taiwan in the Youth Park swimming pool in Taipei.

This time there was actually a swimmer there that swam slightly faster than me, maybe gaining a meter or so on me every 50m. I was probably averaging around 45-47 sec per 50m, I don’t know if you consider that fast or slow. :slight_smile:

That said, it’s not only the foreigners who get scolded for not following the rules. There was a local woman there that was going into the spa section at the end of the pool without a swimming cap on, and the pool guard ran over and stopped her, and got her a cap. :smile: