In which I learn to value running water

Let’s talk about clean water. I grew up on a half acre in a rural area so we had all this beautiful, sweet well water growing up. I can legitimately act all snobby about the chlorine taste of city water and, being from clean-water Canada I can also be all snobby about drinking bottled water.

In England I wasn’t a huge fan of water, because I do like my water ice cold and with our tiny fridge and the general lack of ice cubes it just wasn’t a thing that was that delicious outside of the office water cooler. But the water was fine to use, of course, and we had pretty much the same situation in Germany.

So now, Shanghai. One thing that guidebooks and the internet all agree on is that you can’t drink the water and even the locals don’t drink the water and you can’t just boil it safe. It’s not that Shanghai doesn’t clean its water, it’s just that by the time it travels through aging pipes it picks up various metals and things that can’t be boiled out and which, in some cases, are actually made worse by heating.

When we first moved here it was just one of those things. But then the summer heat hit and it hit hard. By the time the highs were hitting 42c we were easily going through 10 litres a day. It was becoming a struggle just to keep enough water in the house. I could either sign up for a water delivery service, look into having a water purifier installed (and the jury is out on how effective they are), or bring home 4-or-5 litre jugs. I opted for the last one but with the heat it was a real chore to ensure that there was always enough clean water every day and every night. It meant either a sore back from carrying too much or multiple trips out in the blistering heat.

This was enough to make me realize how much we really take for granted back home. Turn on a tap and you can have as much fresh water as you like! I mean, we know that people elsewhere in the world don’t have access to clean water, but we don’t really know what that means. I still don’t really know what it means, because the farthest I had to walk for clean drinking water was to the nearest convenience store, which was rather painful in the heat but still doable.

Recently, we’ve had some improvement works at our apartment building to update the water pipes, which has meant that the water to our building is sometimes turned off. Since we can’t drink the water I didn’t think it would be that inconvenient but I was wrong. No washing clothes or bodies or dishes or floors until the water is turned back on. It just makes the house feel so dirty. Of course this was just a minor inconvenience for the greater good and the workmen were awesome about timing it outside of peak usage hours, but for those few hours it was stressful.

Clean water, piped-in water, even undrinkable but usable water… it really is a most precious gift.