drinking water in china

[Chappie]

Its better to not drink water from the tap in the first few weeks.

I did all with Nongfu or like that (mineral water). Better watch out for soup and such. (Many of new foreign students went back cause of health problems.).

After a few weeks, your body will adepted to its "polluted" food/drinks. Then you can slowly start drinking boiled water, etc.

If you dont smell the stinky water anymore, you are adepted. You also go to the drugstore for some stomachproblems drugs.

One advice! Always eat/drink FRESH, PURE, Clean stuff! I tried once the chinese BIFI (sauseciese). 5 min Right after 1 bit! one piece. I had some stomach problems. After 3 hours and keep going to the toilet and shitting.

And after 6 hours. My stomach went beserk. I was ill for 2 whole days! I couldnt sleep, cant focus, couldnt eat or drink! Luckly the fresh fruits and tea recoverd me quick. besides that I lost my taste for food (my record is 6 bowls of rice, im famous at some restaurants cause of my amount of food i ate.).

You also better drink those "ice tea" and minerals water. Dont drink too much coke, fanta or such. They are almost toxic! Even the bloody heineken wasnt the same! Icecream is more air then ice.

[Quest]

I don't usually get sick when I go back to China. I think it's about your lifestyle, if you bring your western lifestyle to china (e.g. drinking tap water, licking your fingers often) then you would have a higher chance of getting sick in China. Just be careful and take sanitary precaution.

[pazu]

I don't know, but is finger-licking a common Western habit?

For me I never tried to drink the water from tap in China, but there're always hot water everywhere in the hotel, if you aren't staying at hotel then you'd better buy a water-heater.

[Rincewind]

When I went to Inner Mongolia, they took pride in supplying me with the local bottled water. Apparently it is sourced form a spring on the side of a volcano. It was quite pleasant.

Generally, I don't drink my tap water. However, when I go to a restaurant and order cold noodles, it is the local tap water that the noodles are in (I saw the girl make them) so I have had the tap water and it didn't kill me. I don't live in Beijing though so maybe the local supply better than in the metropolises.

The problem with water isn't unique to China. I wouldn't touch the water in most of Europe either. When in the south of Europe I even use bottled water to brush my teeth.

Apparently, according to a BBC radio program I once heard, holiday tummy has less to do with the water quality and more to do with what you are used to. Your body is able to cope with most bugs if it experienced them as a child, but fly around the world and you have a different set of bugs. That is when your body starts to panic.

According to the program, Chinese people get the same dodgy tummy when they go to the west. I don't know if this is true but it would be interesting to here form some Chinese people about how the water affected them when they went to the UK or USA.

[adrianlondon]

When I lived in Beijing last year, for the first week I was drinking tap water without any problems. No visible ones, ayway. Who knows what it did to my insides.

After that week I got a flatmate who looked at me shocked, explained that it wasn't good for me to drink tap water, and we then started having large bottles of water delivered regularly.

[Luobot]

While you absolutely should boil the water for a few minutes, also be aware that if you boil it too much, then the remaining water that hasn’t evaporated has a higher concentration of pollutants, which don’t evaporate. So if you’ve inadvertently boiled a pot down to a sip, it’s best to toss it. The safest water to drink is the evaporated part that’s been recovered (i.e., distilled water), not the remaining water that didn’t evaporate. Quest’s earlier post may indicate a simple method that works well enough. I’ve heard of boiling the water, then cooling it and letting it settle, then freezing it, then chopping off the bottom and melting the top. Finally, you can drink it. Depends on how far you want to go to save a 块. But I’ve also heard that some of the bottled water is about as authentic as the CD’s and DVD’s. Just because it comes in a bottle with a label on it doesn’t mean it wasn’t drawn from the tap. When I’m in China, I usually forget about it after I’ve eaten in a few restaurants. After that, what the heck …

Chinese people get the same dodgy tummy when they go to the west.

I’ve noticed that my Chinese friends who come to the U.S. seem to continue their habit of boiling water and leaving it in a pot to consume throughout the day or night, cooking all fresh veggies, peeling the skin off apples, and so on.

[Shadowdh]

I didnt drink from the tap but did brush my teeth using tap water.. no ill effects... I also ate (Chinese) pears with their skins on and still had no adverse effects...

[Ian_Lee]

Even in US, not everyone drinks tap water.

Here in Hawaii where the water quality is better than at least the other 30~40 states, people are still buying bottled mineral water in bulk from Costco. And in every supermarket, there is a distilled water vending machine.

China should be the borderline case where you are at your own risk. But sometimes even the water is okay, if you live in a neighborhood where the water main has become rusty and not been replaced for years, then you still face considerable risk.

The tap water that you should never drink or even rinse in your mouth is India where the water supply is contaminated by sewage in many cities.

[flameproof]

I was drinking tap water without any problems. No visible ones, anyway.

You don't drop dead from a cigarette either.

If you are in a fixed place I suggest you install a "Reverse Osmosis Device". It's takes out all crap and you get perfect drinking water. I use that for drinking and cooking.

[gougou]

You don't drop dead from a cigarette either.

Exactly. The problem with tap water is not that it contains substances that will kill you right away, but rather particles that will settle in your liver or wherever and come back to haunt you by a time you've long forgotten how to even write 水.

Refer to this post on Imagethief, who quotes the China Daily:

"There is nothing wrong with the water coming out of the plants," Bi [Xiaogang, vice-director of the Beijing Water Authority] said. "It is the distance it has to travel through old pipes to get to people's homes that affects the quality."

[cdn_in_bj]

Has someone done any research about "natural watersheds" in China? You've got such beautiful mountains. Natural mineral water is best preserved in glass bottles and you don't need to recycle the bottles right away (what a waste of energy).

Beautiful beautiful mountains.

Yes, in fact have you heard of Changbai mountains?

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-08/20/content_367082.htm

I had settled on drinking Nongfu Spring branded water for a while now, which I found out later is sourced from Baishan. Just stay away from the big 4L jugs - the plastic used is different and you can taste it in the water. The 1.5L bottles (and smaller) are fine however. In fact, a good friend of mine who came to visit me recently commented on how good the Nongfu Spring water I had gotten him tasted.

Regarding the tap water, it's actually not too bad in Beijing as long as you boil it - I've tasted much worse in some North American cities. My first year and a half here was spent drinking boiled tap water. As far as unboiled tap water goes, I haven't tried drinking it but I have not experienced any problems with ice, washing fruit, brushing teeth, etc. The water here is fairly hard, but I was already used to this.

According to the program, Chinese people get the same dodgy tummy when they go to the west. I don't know if this is true but it would be interesting to here form some Chinese people about how the water affected them when they went to the UK or USA.

Every time I go back to Canada to visit I will always experience some minor digestive "over-efficiency". I remember reading somewhere that there are localized strains of intestinal bacteria, and it takes a while for our body to adapt when we travel to foreign places.

The tap water that you should never drink or even rinse in your mouth is India where the water supply is contaminated by sewage in many cities.

Having spent a couple of weeks travelling in India, I would agree that one needs to be more careful there. Maybe your advice would have eliminated a lot of the "unpleasantness" that I experienced on that trip. Though I would also think that outside of the major cities, there are also places in China where one needs to be careful too.

[Luobot]

If you are in a fixed place I suggest you install a "Reverse Osmosis Device". It's takes out all crap and you get perfect drinking water. I use that for drinking and cooking.

好主意 ... What brand do you use?

According to Wikipedia - "In July 2002, Singapore announced that a process named NEWater would be a significant part of its future water plans. It involves using reverse osmosis to treat domestic wastewater before discharging the NEWater back into the reservoirs."

好喝！

[flameproof]

"Reverse Osmosis Device".....

好主意 ... What brand do you use?

I have no idea. But I suggest you go for something that is available nearby. You may also need somebody to install it. I presume the cost about 2000-4000 - IMHO it's worth it.

Reverse Osmosis is i.e. also used to get drinking water out of seawater. A little device is in a life saving raft.

[koreth]

There are also portable reverse osmosis filters, used for hiking and camping. Some of them screw onto the insides of sport bottles so they look like just a regular bottle you might carry while jogging or biking. I'm considering bringing one along to China so I don't have to keep buying (and wondering about the source of) bottled water.

[Rincewind]

Quest’s earlier post may indicate a simple method that works well enough. I’ve heard of boiling the water, then cooling it and letting it settle, then freezing it, then chopping off the bottom and melting the top.

The method described above will not remove pollution from your water. Very few pollutants will evaporate by just boiling the water. Most pollutants, such as oil, will have a boiling point above that of the water. Other dissolved pollutants like fertiliser, insecticides or similar poisons will not evaporate at all. Freezing the water will have no effect either. Dissolved pollutants will not sink to the bottom or float to the top when you freeze the water so cutting of the top and bottom has no purpose.

The reason for boiling the water is to kill any nasty bacteria that may be lurking in it such as cholera (rare these days) and e-coli. To get rid of polluants, you either must distill all your water (expensive) or use a reverse osmosis filter.

Finally, you can drink it. Depends on how far you want to go to save a 块. But I’ve also heard that some of the bottled water is about as authentic as the CD’s and DVD’s. Just because it comes in a bottle with a label on it doesn’t mean it wasn’t drawn from the tap. When I’m in China, I usually forget about it after I’ve eaten in a few restaurants. After that, what the heck …

This is quite true but not limited to China. Any English readers will remember Dasani from Coca-cola.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0304-04.htm

http://www.newstarget.com/001028.html

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,3604,1174127,00.html

They sell under the brand name "Ice Dew" in China and I tend to avoid it in favor of Nongfu Spring.

[Luobot]

Very few pollutants will evaporate by just boiling the water.

I had also said ...

... the remaining water that hasn’t evaporated has a higher concentration of pollutants, which don’t evaporate ...

Here are some other interesting facts:

- Boil water at a rolling boil for 10 minutes to kill any disease causing bacteria in the water. Add a pinch of salt to each quart of boiled water to improve the taste.

- When the temperature of water is raised, such as when boiling, the amount of dissolved minerals that the water can keep in solution becomes less. The excess minerals come out of the water and form scale. The white deposit in the bottom of a tea kettle is an example of this process.

- Stored jars of water: Shake the jars well before drinking to enhance the flavor. ***Minerals settle to the bottom of the jar.*** Shaking helps to re-distribute the minerals and puts some of the air back into the water so that it does not taste flat.

This last assumes that the minerals are beneficial. It's more likely, especially in China, that they are not.

[Rincewind]

- When the temperature of water is raised, such as when boiling, the amount of dissolved minerals that the water can keep in solution becomes less. The excess minerals come out of the water and form scale. The white deposit in the bottom of a tea kettle is an example of this process.

When the temperature of water is raised, such as when boiling, the amount of dissolved minerals that the water can keep in solution increases.

The white deposit in the bottom of a tea kettle is not an example of this process. Scaling of a kettle is caused by calcium carbonate. This chemical forms when the hydrogencarbonates disolved in the water break down producing carbonates, water and carbon dioxide. The carbonate is not soluble in water and so perticipates out onto your kettle. Here's the chemastry if you are interested.

Ca(HCO3)2(aq) ==> CaCO3(s) + H2O(l) + CO2(g)

[Luobot]

Calcium carbonate is the most typical but not necessarily the only mineral that can be found in scale. That depends on the water in question.

"Hard water causes scale because it contains calcium carbonate (lime) AND OTHER MINERALS that stick to pipes and water heaters as water is heated.”

- From: http://www.uniongas.com/business/otherci/techsol/heating/scale/scaleandwaterheaters.asp

So what are these “other minerals” ?

“Scale deposits that have been identified include complexes of calcium (carbonate, oxalate, sulfate, silicates), ALUMINUM (silicates, hydroxides, phosphates), BARIUM SULFATE, RADIOACTIVE RADIUM SULFATE, and silicates of magnesium ...”

- From: http://www.tappsa.co.za/archive/APPW2002/Title/Scale_deposit_problems/scale_deposit_problems.html

“Typical scales are calcium carbonate, calcium sulfate, barium sulfate, strontium sulfate, iron sulfide, iron oxides, iron carbonate, the various silicates and phosphates and oxides, or any of a number of compounds insoluble or slightly soluble in water.”

From: http://www.glossary.oilfield.slb.com/Display.cfm?Term=scale

Also, minerals are generally (though not in the case of calcium) less soluble in cold water than in hot, which still argues in favor of allowing water to settle in the fridge overnight.

[Dreamer]

living in beijing for one year...everytime i would buy bottles of water 2 drink from..even if i wanted 2 boil water, i would still used prebottled water hehe..just the thought makes me o_O but apparently i heard that the water from the taps are actually safe 2 drink from as they've been filtered etc, but that its acutally the pipes which the water runs through that are the problem..so just b safe and drink from bottled water im guessing! oh n might i add..water from the tap tastes SHIT as me n my friend found out one drunken night when we ran out of bottled water! haha =P

[billiardsmike]

Screw-in bottle filtration units for camping, etc. are not, technically reverse osmosis technology. R.O. is a method of slowly passing water through incredibly fine membranes (I believe down to 1 micron is common; it's been a couple of years) which remove bacterial, parasitic and chemical contaminants. Done properly, this results in almost as much waste water as purified water.

I also brought several portable units to China, and haven't used them much. They contain carbon for chemical contaminants, iodine resins for bacterial issues and a 1 micron filter for parasitic cysts. The better units, such as I have, will even remove viruses. The main problem is that they must be squeezed by hand to force the water through the process (very slow and only good for a few sips at a time.) There is no waste water, thus giving you a slightly less desirable end product than a true R.O. unit. The downside of an R.O. is that it takes practically everything out that would give the water any taste.

I know this not perfectly clear, but it's late, I've had a couple of beers and I haven't been in filtration for several years. In Beijing, I just have large bottles delivered (the most expensive they have is only 12 kuai) and hope for the best.