How this art specialist broke records as an open-water swimmer

Edie Hu was born in California, but today calls Hong Kong home, making a living advising clients on Chinese art and antiquities. Much of her spare time is spent training for and completing the world’s most epic open-water swims.

No 1 son

My great-grandfather in Shanghai had four wives and 18 children. My grandfather was the eldest child and took over the family banking business. In 1950, the family came to Hong Kong and ended up in shipping. With some friends, my grandfather established the Min Chiu Society, a men-only (art) collecting club that’s still active. My father moved to the United States in 1957 to go to Stanford University. He worked on the Stanford Linear Accelerator as a grad student and then for a start-up making semiconductors. He helped pave the way for what would come in Silicon Valley.

Best-dressed kid

It was in California that my dad met my mother, who was born in Tianjin and lived in Taiwan in her teens. She was the youngest of nine and almost all of them moved to the US and lived in the Bay Area. I was born in 1975 and grew up in Menlo Park. My brother, Eric, is 18 months younger. Growing up, there were always a lot of cousins around, and Eric and I were the youngest of the lot. One of my aunts loved to sew and made me dresses. From kindergarten to third grade, I pretty much wore party dresses to school every day. When I look at the class pictures, I was the best-dressed kid. It didn’t make me very sporty though because I couldn’t run in those dresses.

In at the deep end

My mother joined a swimming club. When she found out that kids weren’t allowed to wear water wings in the pool, she signed my brother and me up for lessons. I was about five years old and petrified of the instructor but too scared to cry. When it was Eric’s turn, he cried, and the instructor dunked him in the water. Neither of us had a good start, but gradually we got used to swimming and enjoyed it.

Matter of time

My grandfather visited us when I was about eight. He was already in his 70s and couldn’t speak much English. We had some small porcelain pieces from different dynasties in a glass cabinet and I asked him about them. Finally, he had something to talk to his granddaughter about. He told me one piece was 500 years old and another was 400. As a kid, I had no concept of time, but I still remember which ones he pointed out. That conversation planted a seed in my head that one day I would learn more about ceramics.

Blue ribbons

My brother and I were signed up for the summer swim team when I was seven and enjoyed it. It wasn’t very competitive. You could win your heat and get a blue ribbon. So, I started collecting all these ribbons. It helped that I was on a winning team with some fast kids. We were undefeated for the 11 years I was on the team. At school I was bad at running and always last to be picked for the PE teams, but in the summer, I had a different group of friends and was among the cool kids. When I was about 10, my mum signed me up for year-round swimming. I was taking a lot of after-school lessons and had homework, so the swimming practice became a chore. Summer swimming was a lot more fun.

Game changer

In the early 1990s, water polo was only for boys. That changed when I went to Wellesley College (a women’s liberal arts school in Massachusetts). I tried out for the swim team and got on it. The swim season runs from September to January. In February, after the high of the swim team and having your friends around you all the time, I didn’t want to do nothing and suggested we start a water polo club. We asked some guys at MIT (the nearby Massachusetts Institute of Technology) who play water polo if they’d teach us and they were happy to oblige. In my second year, we got it more established, and by my third year, we had a coach who had graduated and was more serious and we got more pool time. We got qualified to go to the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) Women’s Division III National Championships in 1996. We were playing well-established teams and got smoked, but we had a great time. That water polo club is still around.

Old China

At Wellesley I explored and took a lot of different classes – biology, economics and even calculus, which was so hard. I enjoyed looking at paintings and listening to the professor talk about cathedrals and museums in places I’d never been to. I did a summer internship at Christie’s auction house in Hong Kong, in the Chinese ceramics works of art department, and the following summer went to Sotheby’s in New York and did a similar thing. I graduated in 1997 with a degree in art history. A cousin in Taiwan told me about a programme to work as a volunteer docent in the National Palace Museum (in Taipei). After three months of training I gave tours of the museum for a year. I absolutely loved it and I also studied Chinese. Then I moved to Shanghai for 18 months and through family connections got an internship at the Shanghai Museum, in the ceramics department.

Wheat from the chaff

In 2000, I went to SOAS (the School of Oriental and African Studies) in London and did a master’s in Chinese art history and was then recruited by Sotheby’s in New York, in the Chinese works of art department. I catalogued objects that came in for sale. People brought in things for appraisal every day, without appointment. Most of the time they were fake, but once in a while they would pull out something that was worth doing research on and possibly putting in the sale. I had to think on the spot and I really cut my teeth there. It was like Antiques Roadshow every day.

First impressionists

In 2007, I moved with Sotheby’s to Hong Kong. I thought I’d come for a couple of years, and it has been 17. All the imperial and top pieces were being sold in Hong Kong – it was a great place to be. The sales were going up and up. In 2014, I was recruited by Citibank in their private bank, in the art-financing department. They gave loans using art as collateral. At Sotheby’s I’d been so specialised that I didn’t get to see contemporary art collections, but at Citibank I’d go with the bankers to their client’s house and perhaps see Impressionist paintings. It was on the spot and I had to be open to seeing everything.

Making a splash

When I arrived in Hong Kong, I started doing open-water swimming. In 2008, I did the 2km Shek O Challenge but, working full time, I didn’t keep it up. In 2012, I joined a relay (team) for the Clean Half (marathon swim). Our ragtag team finished in a decent time. At the after-party I met some people and decided to join the Sunday open-water swimming group, which I now run. Once The Pulse (shopping centre) opened on Repulse Bay Beach, we started to hang out there after the swims and it became more of a social group. Slowly, we pushed ourselves to swim farther.

We’d swim to Chung Hom Kok, a 5km swim. In 2015, when Simon Holliday started Splash Foundation, a non-profit offering free swimming lessons, I joined as one of the coaches.

Going the distance

For years my brother and I had been talking about doing the 15km Maui Channel Swim. We did it in 2015 – and got blown off course and ended up doing 20km. In 2016, I was the first woman to complete the Cold Half, a 15km winter swim from Stanley Main Beach to Deep Water Bay Beach. By 2019, I had the distance bug and decided to try one of the Oceans Seven swims, considered the world’s seven hardest channel swims. Japan was the closest one, so I tried that, but didn’t make it. It was a good learning opportunity.

Open ocean

By 2020, the whole process of giving loans was slow and I started to get a little antsy and bored. When Covid came around, I thought it was a good time to leave (Citibank). I joined a friend as a partner in art-appraisal and art-advisory company Centrepiece, specialising in Chinese antiquities, Chinese contemporary ink and contemporary art. I had more time to swim. Although the beaches were closed during the pandemic, the ocean was still open, and it was the safest place to be. We were resourceful and found ways of getting into the sea.

Swimming the world

In 2021, I went back to my home state and swam the length of Lake Tahoe from the south to the north (34.3km). My brother was on the (support) boat and swam a bit with me. In 2022, on a whim, I swam the English Channel. It wasn’t such an ordeal. A week later I went to New York and swam around Manhattan Island. It was great to be back in my old city and the skyline was beautiful. I had two of the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming under my belt. Last September, I swam the Catalina Channel and completed the Triple Crown, the first person in Hong Kong to do it. In October (2023), I got to do the 15km Gibraltar Strait, another of the Oceans Seven swims.

Out of control

This July I was in Copenhagen looking at the distance from Denmark to Sweden and thought it’s not far. A friend saw that there was a swim and encouraged me to do it. I had perfect conditions and the wind was in my favour and I ended up breaking a record. If you are in a pool, it is a controlled arena. I love the freedom of being in the open water and having elements that you cannot control – there’s marine life, currents and garbage. Every time you go out is a different swim. It is an adventure. I don’t care if you are a billionaire or a student, everybody is equal in the water.

Fearless 50

Next February I’m planning to swim Cook Strait (in New Zealand), from the South Island to the North Island, another of the Oceans Seven swims. It won’t be easy because the weather is a huge factor. Luckily, I have an open schedule and I’m not tied to an office. You don’t have to be super skinny to do this. Having extra body weight is actually useful because I’m more buoyant and it helps with the cold. I feel like my body has adapted to the water. I turn 50 next year. I am slowing down, but this is not for speed. People’s endurance can be built up. You don’t have to be 20, you can be 50 and still do these challenges.