ess than two decades have passed since Hong Kong's excellent
and the occasional Chinese family. But as the Colony developed the beginnings of an affluent society, with a greater amount of leisure time on its hands, the pendulum swung the other way. Today the Colony's natural swimming facilities are virtually stretched to the limit, but its man-made facilities are expanding rapidly. Swimming in Hong Kong is now regarded as perhaps the most popular outdoor summer activity and to keep pace with this trend, the Government has embarked on an ambitious programme to provide swimming pool complexes in the most densely populated areas. There are already five such complexes-three of them completed in a period of just over 12 months. These pools are capable of accommodating up to 5,000 people at a time, and illustrate how big a small place like Hong Kong can think when confronted with a problem. Four additional swim- ming pools are either under construction or in the planning stage. The beaches, too, are being improved and new ones developed to ease the overcrowding on the more popular ones and to increase the facilities for this swimming 'explosion'.