Hot water - Chinese medicine

When I first came to China, I landed at Pudong airport in Shanghai and had to walk a long way from the international to the domestic terminal. I got thirsty on the way and stopped at a water dispenser to have a cup of water. There was a cup holder on the wall next to the dispenser and a sign above the cup holder saying that the cups were not suitable for hot water. The dispenser itself had three buttons with Chinese writing. I stood there for a while completely puzzled and didn't know which button to press. Luckily, a Chinese man who spoke English came to help me. When I asked for the cold water, he said that there is no cold water in China and that the three buttons said 'warm', 'warm' and 'hot'. I pressed the first button in disbelieve and the display showed 29 degrees Celsius. The second button showed 30 degrees Celsius and the third showed 100 degrees. So I went for the 29 degrees. It wasn't refreshing to drink warm water on a warm day. This is when I remembered that my wonderful assistant Jing had told me a few times that she herself and the entire nation drink everything warm or hot, even in summer. She also told me there are people who drink cold drinks, but women switch to warm liquids during their period.
This was my first encounter with warm/hot water, and many more were to come.
In Guiyang, I soon noticed that all Chinese were carrying thermos with hot water or tea and drank even warm beer. I also noticed that refrigerators in the shops were not plugged in and were only there for decoration.
The first time I heard the advice 'drink hot water' was when one of my colleagues got sick. From that moment I kept hearing it from all Chinese people I knew. When I was down with flu for a few days, I gave it a try and got well after a few days. Not sure if it was the healing effect of the hot water or the warmth and sleep I had during those days. I made some Chinese happy when I replied to their messages that I would drink hot water in order to get well again.
Sometime later, there was a huge and furious discussion in one of the expats groups on WeChat about hot water. They were saying, that at least in Guiyang, hot water was the solution and medicine to everything (see image below) and when they went to a hospital, the doctors would advise them to drink hot water and wouldn't prescribe them any medicine. Even though this was serious, I had to chuckle while reading. Naturally the Chinese in the group chat disagreed and said that we were exaggerating.
A few months later, when yet another food poisoning tied me to my bed (I had survived various food poisonings until then - or Mao's revenge as they are called, which are part of the game when moving and living in China), a dear Chinese friend came to my place and took me to a nearby hospital. Even though I knew that I was suffering food poisoning, the doctors wanted to be sure, or earn some money, and made me undergo various examinations like ultrasound, etc. To my fortune, they prescribed me some meds, but also gave me a very valuable advice: to drink hot water.

Well, try it if you want and email me your experience. Feel free to tell me if drinking hot water has made you healthy/healthier, prettier or made you find the love of your life.
Until then, cheers everyone!

If you would like to read more by me, type my name, Theodore Goumas, into the amazon search bar and the following two should appear in English and German.

Creativity

I posted the photo underneath in several WeChat group chats a while ago and waited for reactions. The reactions came and they came massively.
I took the photo from a window a few months ago and it shows the creativity of (Chinese) children. In this highly technological world, in which everyone seems to be staring at some sort of screen, be it a mobile phone, a tablet, a computer, etc. this little girl chose to do something creative while waiting for its mother. All it needed was some water in a puddle. Some others might have jumped into the water and made themselves wet and dirty, but this little girl had a better idea.
The comments in the various group chats can be divided into two main and several subgroups. The two main are Asians and Westerners and the subgroups are Asian men, Asian women, western men, western women, the Americas, central and northern Europeans, eastern Europeans, southern Europeans, Arabs, Africans, etc. You get the picture. However, it all goes back to the cultural background and upbringing of the users.
Women saw this action positively and their comments were also highly positive. Men however, share a different opinion depending on the place of origin. While Asians found it highly romantic, cute, etc, northern Americans and central and northern Europeans found it rather irritating and spoke of society pressure and seeing marriage and finding love as the ultimate goal in life. One user must have read my novel, as he quoted: .... secretly they don’t want the prince of their dreams to drive up on the first date in a rusty Fiat Panda but hope that he gets out of a Porsche and floats elegantly around the car, and that a red carpet is unrolled as he opens the passenger door. Depending on whether you are feminine or masculine, this can be the material of a chick-flick-girl-on-a-horse-novel full of princes, love, hugs and kisses or of soft porn in a late-night private TV-programme ....
Some other men and emancipated women, (there were some Asian ones among them to my surprise), lamented that there's too much pressure on young people to get married and have children at a really young age.
This is true and it happens in many other countries and cultures, not only in China. Chinese people however, seem to be very romantic. If you visit the country or if you watch couples travelling around the world how they act with each other, you will notice that there is a romance between them that could come out of the above mentioned chick-flick novel. 
Even the Chinese government is convinced that foreigners come to China to find true love and published an article about it a while ago. I posted about it. My post can be found here (Luv is in the air) and the original article by the Chinese government can be found here.

Most users however agreed that this girl showed creativity and created something out of nothing. Not sure about other Asian cultures, but the Chinese are highly creative and artistic. They dance, sing, draw, paint have a passion for calligraphy and many other things.

If you would like to read more by me, type my name Theodore Goumas into the amazon search bar and the following two books should appear.