Memories of the Hiyoshi Pool

2019/09/03

Image: Around 1970, Japan's first water polo pool was built in the background, and the newly opened Hiyoshidai Student Heights can be seen.

In 1960 (Showa 35), as part of the project to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Juku, an outdoor Hiyoshi Pool (an officially recognized 50-meter pool) was constructed between the Hiyoshi Athletic Field on Hiyoshi Campus and Tsunashima Kaido (the current site of the Kyoseikan Collaboration Complex). I entered the university that very year and joined the Swimming Section of the Athletic Association, and I was fortunate enough to practice in this newly built pool from my first year. This pool was demolished in 2006 as part of the 150th anniversary project in 2008 to renovate the athletic field and construct the Kyoseikan Collaboration Complex; the pool is now located in the basement of the Kyoseikan Collaboration Complex.

For 42 years from 1961 to 2003, swimming lessons were held every summer at this outdoor pool under the banner of "All Keio students must swim" as part of the physical education practical skills that were a compulsory subject for all Keio students at the time (until 1992). Also, during the summer vacation periods until around 1980, the pool was open to local residents and was very crowded. In addition to its location just a one-minute walk from Hiyoshi Station, the Hiyoshi Pool had a high reputation as the cleanest pool along the Toyoko Line. It was so popular that admission was restricted, and queues of people waiting to enter sometimes stretched along the tree-lined path to near the Memorial Hall. We members of the swimming club were made to take turns serving as lifeguards.

In the summer of 1961, the Nikkatsu film "Aitsu to Watashi" (He and I), a film adaptation of Yojiro Ishizaka's coming-of-age novel, was filmed at that pool. Some of you may have seen the scene where the protagonist, a male student played by Yujiro Ishihara, is questioned by several female students played by Izumi Ashikawa and others, and is pushed into the pool in the heat of the moment.

I remember being surprised when I happened to go to the pool that day and noticed Yujiro Ishihara standing in front of the locker room building on the high bank overlooking the pool from the poolside, with several actresses around him. The water in the pool where Yujiro was dropped, as seen in the footage, was clear and beautiful blue.

There is a picture of female students relaxing on the grass of the Hiyoshi Athletic Field bank, but at that time, the number of female university students was not large; in my political science class, only 2 out of 60 students were female. It was an era when the dramatic increase in the rate of women going to university, as seen today, was unimaginable.