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Q: Is tap water safe enough for drinking and cooking during the frozen winter of the Northeast China?
12 years 15 weeks ago in Health & Safety - China
In Guangxi Province (never lived in NE China), water is safe to drink from the tap, I have been doing it for over 16 months on a daily basis with no ill effects. Yet, I do boil it and filter it as an added precaution. I have visited Guangxi for almost 15 years now, I never became sick from its water supply. At first only drank bottled water, one day ran out and took a risk, nothing happened and quit buying bottle water.
But I do not recommend that to anyone without doing a little testing prior.
bigkrishna, I gather from your other posts that you are in Changchun. As I also am in the Dong Bei but in not in Changchun, I would like to answer your question more directly : Changchun water has had problems in the past with heavy metals, etc., etc. Changchun is a heavily industrialized city and not the best representative of the rest of the Dong Bei. Several years back they had such a drought that the city was waterless and water had to be trucked in from the rest of the Dong Bei and even other parts of the country.
I would not under any circumstances drink tap water in Changchun. I would however buy a good water machine with a series of charcoal-based purifiers and then but only then would I use bottled water. Rinse your dishes carefully with a little bleach in a hot water solution, less than 1/3 teaspoon and be careful about brushing your teeth.
Ultimately the choice is yours.
bigkrishna:
thanks... guess i was right in buying bottled water for drinking.... every year you get water shortage, it really sucks... also taste of water here is so bad...
I only drink bottled water when in Shenyang but everyone else drinks boiled tap water. The thing is though that I brush my teeth and drink tap water in tea coffee etc. I just dont like the taste much of the boiled stuff and I think that limiting my exposure to it is for the better. Strange really I guess as I pretty muchignore the risks with other foods and eat whatever and where ever I feel like.
bigkrishna:
be careful... in case accident takes place.. excess chlorinated water will be supplied.. using heavily chlorinated water, just imagine the consequence of acidic water...
I'm in Daqing and would never drink the tap water unless I boiled it first. For tea, soups and coffe I use boiled tap water and from time to time I boil water and let it cool and refrigerate it for drinking later. So far, no problems. This story held true in my 5 years in Harbin as well.
