Why do Chinese drink hot water?
Wherever you go in China, you will definitely find hot water. Yes, you have to do a lot of difficult research for cold water.
The Chinese believe that a person’s good health depends on his or her body temperature. According to ancient Chinese medicine, the human body has two stores of energy. Yin and Yang. To stay healthy, one has to keep a balance between the two. When the amount of yang in the human body increases, the body temperature will start rising and as a result, the person will get sick. To get rid of this disease, you need to reduce the amount of yang in your body. It is recommended to use Yin drinks for this.
Hot water is a drink of yin. The Chinese believe that hot water can cure any disease in the human body.
A few years ago I had the opportunity to travel to western China with a group. One day a Chinese girl in the group was holding her stomach. When I inquired about her condition, I found out that she had severe abdominal pain.
I had stomach pain medicine in my bag. I told her, “If you want, I can give you medicine brought from Pakistan. After using this medicine, your stomach ache will disappear immediately.”
She gently denied me, saying, “I’m drinking hot water. The pain will go away in a while. ‘And that’s what happened. An hour later, she was chatting with her friends, holding a hot water bottle in her hand.
Hot water is an important part of Chinese culture and the Chinese are very proud of it.
An Italian student who graduated from a Chinese university in June 2018 went viral on the Chinese internet because of his love for hot water. Carlo was a student at East China Normal University in Shanghai, China. He was asked by the university to speak at the graduation ceremony. He said in his speech that after coming to China, he started drinking hot water on the advice of his Chinese friends and he considered hot water to be a miraculous drink. When Carlo’s speech reached the Internet, the Chinese liked it. They made him a hero overnight. Her video was repeatedly shared with words of thanks.
Hot drinking water has been used in China for centuries. In ancient China, people drank hot water in winter to protect themselves from the harsh weather. At that time fuel was as expensive. The Chinese people were just as poor.
Ordinary sugar did not have the money to buy the fuel needed to boil water. How did he drink hot water? In those days hot water was a status symbol for the rich and luxury for the poor.
Gradually, as conditions improved in China, hot water began to seep out of the homes of princes and into the homes of the poor. By the middle of the seventeenth century, after the fall of the Ming Dynasty, hot water was widely used in China.
In the 19th century, small hot water shops opened everywhere in China. These shops were called Lao Ho Jao or Leopard Stove. Think of these shops as modern day cafes. The only difference is that there was only one thing on their menu: hot water.
The Chinese love these hot water shops. They soon opened up in every part of the country. Since then, hot water has become cheaper and more common in China.
What was left, however, was filled by awareness campaigns run by the government. In 1930, the then Chinese government launched a campaign called the New Life Movement. The aim of the campaign was to teach people the principles of hygiene. They were told to eat well and drink hot water for good health. Hot water was already widely used in China before the movement.
Soldiers in the Chinese army could file a complaint if hot water was not available, and if any of them showed up drinking boiled water, they would file a complaint. Even after this campaign, the Chinese government launched dozens of campaigns for the common use of hot water in China. Pictures of Chinese leader Mao Zedong drinking hot water were also broadcast.
The importance of Mao to the Chinese was such that when he said or did something, he felt obligated to himself and his descendants. At present, hot water is widely available everywhere in China. That too for free. No matter where you go, you will definitely find hot water.
