Surviving China: Dealing with water

Having survived the first day at Xiamen University, and having successfully acquired internet, a bank account, a meal card, and appropriate beds for our poor students, we figured that things were going to start looking up. And they did. Sort of. Because we all know what happens once you have food and shelter figured out: It's time to really adjust. And adjusting to life in southern China was quite the challenge. One common theme throughout our adaptation woes was water.

It started on that infamous first day, when the international coordinator for Xia da (as Xiamen University is affectionately known in Chinese) warned that several typhoons were on their way towards us. As the only person in our entire group who had not lived through at least one major hurricane, I was probably the only one to be slightly concerned at this statement. But my fears soon proved to be unfounded, as none of the typhoons actually hit Xiamen, but all safely skirted by the island. Now this is a good thing. Obviously. The last time Xia da was hit by a typhoon (in the mid 1990s), all the buildings on our side of campus flooded as the result of a mini-tsunami. But, like in Georgia, when a typhoon "skirts by", it means that although you're not hit by the worst of the winds of the rains, you will get to share in some significant rainfall. And we did. For three typhoons straight, we got to share some of its never-ending rains, which, in case you were wondering, lasted the entire first week. From the moment I got up on Saturday morning, until the moment we climbed the ten-thousand boulder mountain behind campus Friday evening, it rained.

But we took it in stride. We all bought Chinese umbrellas decked out in the mandatory sparkles and flowers. We stopped wearing closed shoes as they just weren't getting dry, and we swapped tips on how to do laundry and get it to dry regardless of the incessant downpour, as Xia da did not provide dryers (hint: patience). However, there comes that moment when you just want it to stop raining. Your feet haven't been dry in days, and are so saturated with water that simply walking to the dining hall will leave them white and wrinkled. The underwear that you hung out to dry under your AC unit in your room are still damp two days after you washed them. The Chinese sewers have, like you, given up, leaving you to slosh through two inches of water to get in and out of buildings. And you realize that the only way to get a dry towel is to buy a new one.

And then it stopped. I think it actually stopped raining when we were climbing this insane mountain full of little steps and stairs. It was almost divine. Now once it stopped raining, summer started. And summer in southern China is for real. Temperatures rose to at least 100F every day, with humidity hovering in the high 90% range. This not only meant you got to sweat in places you didn't think could sweat (ankles! wrists! stomach! elbows!), and you didn't have to use moisturizer or body lotion for weeks, it also meant that if you weren't drinking water constantly, your body was telling you in no uncertain terms you were going to die. In the next thirty minutes.  Now the water in China is absolutely not drinkable, and so bottled water is the way to go. Which is fine, once you figure out how much water you need to bring with you on excursions so you don't have to purchase anything from iffy-looking vendors. Not that I don't want to support the Chinese entrepreneur, because I do, but we were actually warned that some of these budding entrepreneurs are known to dig used water bottles out of trash cans, fill them with tap water, and sell them to unsuspecting tourists. Anything to make a yuen, I'm sure, but for a people who come from a country where water is so filtered and chlorinated people buy water filters to avoid the taste, this is just not a good idea.

Which brings me to the third way in which water is an important part of your life in China: the toilet. Whether you're in a private home, or in a public stall, on a squatting toilet or a "Western" one, there is one rule that applies throughout China: do not flush your toilet paper. I was told it has something to do with the water pressure and the size of the pipes. Whatever the reason, I can tell you from personal experience that if you do flush paper down the toilet, especially if it's a lot of paper, because, say, your stomach has just decided it does not care for what you ate for dinner that night, your toilet will clog. And someone will need to come and unclog it for you. And that can potentially be very embarrassing. Just saying.

Anyway, what this means is that every bathroom is outfitted with a trashcan for your used toilet paper. Had you come to visit me (and if only you had, it would have been so much fun!), you would have found an empty trash can, as I emptied that disgusting thing into the main trashcan out in the hallway as soon as I had put something in it. I mean, I see no need to keep a memento of my bathroom visit around any longer than I need to. Now the trash can in the hallway (used by everyone for this purpose) was emptied once a day. Yep. Once a day, which meant it had a whole glorious 24 hours to attract every single bug on the floor. An entomologist's dream come true. Now before you all start wrinkling your noses, please note that once a day is absolutely awesome when compared to most public toilets. Most public toilets had trash cans that were overflowing with, and I'll say it again, used toilet paper. I don't know when those things were emptied, but judging by the faded colors I had the chance to observe on some of this toilet paper, I would venture at least several days. Maybe a week or so. Now add to that the fact that all public toilets in China are the squatting kind, the additional fact that aiming with those kinds of toilets gets tricky, especially if one is wearing long pants and one's knees are no longer as supple as they used to be, and you can imagine the smell that greeted most bathroom users. It was truly amazingly disgusting.

All of this really made me appreciate the drainage systems in our street, the water purification systems in our town, our faucets, but most especially our bathroom. I vividly remember coming home from the airport, walking into our bathroom, and sitting down on our toilet with the most satisfying, welcome-home sigh ever. Of course, when it was time to rid myself of my toilet paper, it -almost- ended up in the trash can. You can't undo a month of training that easily.

But like everything else, you get used to it. If a bathroom is too disgusting to use, you hold it, or find a nice-sized bush outside. If you run out of water, and you all see are "iffy" vendors, you buy something bottled that is not water (as that's harder to fake). And if it rains a lot, you simply learn to identify people you know by their umbrellas. Simple as that.

Of course our adjustment wasn't over yet. Because just when we thought we had conquered the water, the next thing was around the corner: bugs. Really big bugs.