Chinese students take on a 600-mile Yangtze swim

Two students in the central Chinese city of Wuhan chose a novel way to go home to Shanghai for their summer vacation -- a 600-mile swim down the Yangtze River during the flood season. The China Youth News reports that braving storms , whirlpools, waves, eddies, and adverse tides, the pair swam two-thirds of the way in 11 days and, after a rest, were to continue downstream to Shanghai.

The report made no reference to the famous swim at Wuhan almost exactly 15 years ago at the start of the Cultural Revolution by the late Chairman Mao Tse-tung. He swam 9 miles down the Yangtse to show the nation that politically he was still a force to be reckoned wi th. It used to be celebrated in annual mass swims.