ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how the cross harbour race, which was first organised in 1906 by the Victoria Recreation Club (VRC) under the sponsorship of the local English press The China Mail, served as a tool of social integration in Hong Kong, melding together swimmers of different race, gender, and age. Rather than encouraging divisiveness, swimming competitions paradoxically served as a bridge that brought together Westerners and the Chinese people in Hong Kong on the one hand, as well as the Hong Kong Chinese and Mainland China on the other. Concomitant with the growing popularity of swimming among the Hong Kong Chinese, Hong Kong Chinese swimmers also began to participate in the harbour swim in 1920 and considered their triumph in the race a racial glory for the Hong Kong Chinese. The meaning of the harbour swim changed over time. In the postwar period, the nationalistic sentiments ascribed to the race gradually gave way to the symbolic meaning of personal challenge to one's own limits.
