This article comes from the WeChat public account:Nine lines (ID: jiuxing_neweekly)< span class = "text-remarks">, author: old artist, title figure from: vision China
Old artists have done a lot of discussion on the differences between China and foreign countries, but they have never talked about this unsolved mystery that is often talked about and new-Why do Chinese people like to drink hot water?
This is one of the most searched Chinese questions on Google and the most difficult Chinese mystery for foreigners.
△In the eyes of foreigners, the Chinese pretend to be hot water/ meme
Anyone who knows abroad on Quora is always curious about this question: What do you think is the “most Chinese” thing for Chinese people?
△Chinese operations/webpage screenshots that foreigners can’t understand
A highly praised answer is: drink plain water.
In the American discussion community Reddit, there is a magical distress question: My mother only drinks hot water, should I call the police?
Even if we are already accustomed to drinking hot water, another foreigner is always asking questions about the century of drinking hot water. Such cultural differences that do not understand each other seem to be deeply entrenched.
△Guoren also said that there is no language/screenshot of such a label
You may be able to enumerate the 100 benefits of drinking hot water for your backhand, or attribute this difference to a big difference between Chinese and Western physiques. Slow down, do things really take that for granted?
1. Chinese people drink hot water, foreigners drink ice water are just right?
Old artists who travel abroad all the year round chat with friends about the inconvenience of traveling abroad and get the most feedback. There is no doubt that: why is it so difficult to drink hot water while traveling abroad!
Unexpectedly, the quickest experience of going abroad is to be a good cold water.
There is a classic joke in Germany: “Waiter, the coffee is a bit cold.” “Sir, ice coffee will cost an extra euro.”
△The hotel has a hot water bottle that is already very friendly/aladyofleisure
You might think it’s a bit weird, don’t they need a hot water bottle?
American blogger Guo Jierui once showed in his video how Americans use cold water to make a cup of pasta. To heat them, they can rely on a microwave oven. For them, microwave ovens are easier and faster than electric kettles.
△Americans use microwave ovens to heat everything
Many posts have analyzed this is the difference between Chinese and Western physique. But drinking hot water is not necessarily a Chinese patent. The old artist really met a British girl who was holding a thermos and drinking hot water on the British street.
If it is caused by differences in Chinese and Western physiques, if you look at Thailand, a Southeast Asian country, locals not only do not have the habit of drinking hot water, but even water with ice cubes is common.
Japanese people in East Asia also drink ice water. Usually, Japanese restaurants give guests a glass of ice water and a cup of warm water. You may question, aren’t Japanese brand vacuum flasks very common?
△The basic accomplishment of Japanese restaurants is to give you a glass of water with ice cubes/unsplash
Yes, but the Japanese will tell you that they usually take a thermos for hot tea, or even use a thermos to keep cold in cold water.
2. Chinese don’t drink hot water after birth
If you really want to trace where the difference between the hot and cold water comes from, don’t move your physique. The Chinese did not drink hot water since ancient times. In the 19th century, the British also regarded cold water as a tiger beast. .
The French historian Braudel once calculated that the history of Chinese drinking hot water can be traced back to four thousand years ago.
When ancient pottery and ancient Greece used various pottery to hold items, the ancient Chinese ancestors knew how to directly put pottery on a fire to burn water in the Neolithic era, and had the original pottery pot and pot.
△Xianmin pottery used to boil water/video screenshot
This makes the difference in the original drinking customs, we are cooking, but the food cooking of Western ancestors always uses roasting as the main method.
But this statement is not completely accurate. According to ancient Chinese literature, drinking hot water also requires conditions to be affordable.
The fuel is expensive, and the cost of storing ice is not low. Hot water, like ice water, is a luxury that people at the bottom cannot drink. They only drink cold raw water.
△ boiling water is a symbol of the upper class/wiki
The General History of Chinese Customs once recorded the Japanese monk Yuanren to Datang. When passing by Shandong, he said that people here “did not cook soup, but only eat cold dishes all year round.”
In the “Chinese Family History”, ordinary people in the Song and Yuan Dynasties did not fire hot water except for cooking, except for the elderly and patients, most people drank raw water.
Drinking hot water may be common to the upper classes of the society. An official from the Ming Dynasty Yang Lian thought that he would die if he didn’t drink hot water, because he could not stand the torture of Wei Zhongxian. Decide-“Drink cold water every morning to die quickly.”
But he didn’t know that the people at the bottom of the city went to the Qing Dynasty, even if the water was dirty.
△Officials who don’t know that people are drinking cold water every day, think that drinking cold water will kill people/video screenshot
Foreigners who don’t like drinking hot water are popular in the early days.
From the beginning of the 14th century until the early 19th century, the Black Death was the protagonist of infectious diseases that raged in Europe. With this lesson, when medicine has not evolved to find bacteria, drinking hot water makes them feel more sterilized and more hygienic. .
Especially British people may drink hot water more than Chinese people.
In the UK, the upper class people have a tradition of drinking hot tea early. In the 19th century British “Ms. Beeton Housekeeping”, when talking about the elderly, infirm or just finished sports, do not drink Ice water, even if it is heavy, may also die.
Furthermore, the preservation of clean drinking water is very difficult for the environment at that time, and the water is extremely prone to breeding bacteria and infectious sources.
At this time, wine has become the most clean and hygienic alternative, which is the reason why drinking alcohol was common in medieval Europe.
△Europeans actually have a hard time drinking, and wine comes more easily than clean water/wiki
So that today we said the word “Drink” in English. If there is no special object, Westerners default to “drinking”.
In the 17th century, the Dutch also used beer to clean the floor. One can imagine how difficult it was to purify the water.
△ Sounds luxurious, but they don’t want to wash with water/video
Before the issue of drinking water purification has been resolved, people at home and abroad