don't drink the waaaater

Water in China is not purified or treated like in the States. Granted, in Phoenix people don't like to drink the water, but they can. When you come to China, you are told not to drink the water unless you boil it first. Or, people told ME that at least.

My replacement in Tianjin apparently didn't get the memo though. I saw her filling up a water bottle from the sink one day and I asked what she was doing. When I told her not to drink the water she told me she had been for two days and got a bit worried. We assumed she was going to have some kind of fun stomach bug (think drinking the water in Mexico).

In the end nothing happened to her, but even the Chinese don't drink the tap water. It has a ton of minerals and such in it so they say that in the long run (or even just for a month), it is not good for you. I think because of this, they don't have drinking fountains anywhere. I was explaining them to a student the other day and she said she had seen them in movies.

I have yet to hear of anywhere here having a water softener either, and showers definitely make your skin and hair dry. I thought my body would adjust after a while, and my hair definitely has, I just wash it less, but my skin hasn't.