为什么有些中国人这么爱喝热水？ [美国媒体]

Why-do-some-Chinese-drink-hot-water

为什么有些中国人这么爱喝热水？



Kai
Drinking hot water is because of concern of hygiene. Tapwater is supposed to be not clean enough to drink directly and may causediarrhoea. So kettle is a necessity forthe Chinese family. Even in steaming hot weather, we have to boil the tap water first.Alternatively , people buy mineral drinks or purified water.
Tea drinking is a national hobby. The right way to drinkgreen tea is to pour hot water on thetea leaves to arouse the fragrance of the tea.
And also drinking hot water ( and eating warm food) issupposed to be good for your health according to the traditional herbalmedicine. Especially for ladies in their special times ( monthly period or thefirst month after giving birth) , cold drink and food is a taboo and they'renot even allowed to touch cold water (like swimming or washing dishes in coldwater) in these special days.

喝热水是出于对卫生的考虑。人们认为自来水不够干净，不能直接饮用，可能导致腹泻。所以水壶是中国家庭的必需品。即使在热气腾腾的天气里，我们也得先把自来水烧开。或者，人们购买矿物饮料或纯净水。

喝茶是一种全国性的爱好。喝绿茶的正确方式是把热水倒在茶叶上，唤起茶叶的香味。根据传统的中医，喝热水（和吃热的食物）对你的健康有好处。特别是在特殊时期（月度或分娩后的第一个月），冷饮和食物是一个禁忌，在这些特殊的日子里，他们甚至不允许接触冷水（比如在冷水中游泳或洗碗）。

Oksana Gryvnak
Traditional Chinese Medicine believes in saving energy asmuch as possible. For this reason cold drinks and cold (raw) foods are notfavorable and usually forbidden (especially to those who are sick). Consumptionof cold food depleted energy resources of the body that are much needed forrestoring overall balance in our body since balanced body equals healthy bodyin TCM.
Another reason to drink/eat warm or hot food/fluids is thedigestion itself. According to Chinese Medicine our stomach “likes” warmth and moisture. These are the conditions under whichit performs best. Cold/raw foods make the stomach collapse for some time makingus bloated, tired and painful at times after the meal since food does notdigest properly.
Older Chinese people have a good habit of drinking hot waterfirst thing in the morning as well as 20 minutes prior to each meal. It “wakes up” our stomach to perform it’s function better. Chinese even say that it helps to stayfit… (who knows, maybe?)

传统中医认为应该尽量节省体能。因此，冷饮和冷（生）食品是不受欢迎的，通常是禁止的（特别是那些生病的人）。食用冷食消耗人体能量资源，这是恢复身体整体平衡所必需的，因为在中医看来，平衡的身体等于健康的身体。

喝/吃热的或热的食物╱液体的另一个原因是消化本身。根据中医的说法，我们的胃“喜欢”温暖和潮湿。这些是它最适合的条件。冷的/生的食物会使我们的胃塌缩一段时间，使我们在饭后有时感到浮肿、疲倦和疼痛，因为食物消化不良。上了年纪的中国人有一大早就喝热水的良好习惯，在吃饭前20分钟也是如此。它能“唤醒”我们的胃更好地发挥它的功能。中国人甚至说保持健康对身体有帮助…（谁知道呢？）

Sam Arora
Chinese are very smart and they have lot of wisdom passed onfrom one generation to next generation. In fact drinking hot water with meal isvery good idea, they believed in it for thousands of years and I also, nowbelieve it too, cold beverage will bring down the body temperature and it slowdown the digestion. Scientifically it is true and it is a fact, becauseenzymes./bacteria and all biochemical reactions work best at body temperature thanat lower temperature.
regards
PS: I have seen with my own eyes during my recent trip tochina, that all bottles of soda, beer, and bottled water will go back untouchedin the restaurants , and Chinese literally do not care for cold drinks at all.
They are extremely disciplined, extremely hard workingnation, and all they will drink warm/hot water or green tea, nothing couldentice to change their mind,
They take the advice of their elders/teachers veryseriously, grand parents are almost worshiped there.
Also some very bright writers are saying it improves thequality of water, because in modern china, water quality is going down, yes, itis partially true for drinking hot water, but Chinese drank hot water forthousands of years, for health reasons, when the water around the world was notso questionable, (they knew it for thousands of years ahead of time, than othercivilizations, that hot water is beneficial, these are my thoughts)


Guo
This hot-water drinking habit has many reasons, one of whichis certainly for health because people drink water from wells, streams orrivers before tap water appeared in China. Also, there are some minor reasons Ithink worth mentioning.
Boiling water on coal/wood ovens is relatively energyefficient. If you are familiar with such ovens, you will find cooking actuallydoesn't take much time. Once the cooking is finished, we don't just shut downthe oven but put a kettle full of water over it till the wood/coal goes outgradually. That time the water is also ready.
Boiled water tastes better, either hot or cooled down.

这种饮用热水的习惯有很多原因，其中一个原因当然是为了健康，因为在中国自来水出现之前，人们饮用水井、溪流或河流中的水。还有，我认为有一些小的原因值得一提。

在炉子上烧水是相对节能的。如果你对这种烤箱很熟悉，你会发现做饭其实不需要很多时间。一旦烹饪完毕，我们不仅要关掉烤箱，还要在上面放上一锅水，直到木头或煤逐渐熄灭。到时候水也准备好了。
开水的味道更好，无论热的或是凉白开。

Anonymous
The “drinkboiled water” habit wasfirst promoted nationwide by the government of Republic of China in the 1930sas a method to avoid people getting diseases drinking directly from rivers orwells. It was part of the “Newlifestyle campaign”. Boiled waterwas the treatment for patients in China before 20th century and in the longperiod of chaos and wars from 1860 to 1950 it became an effective way to keepone healthy. For example when you are drinking directly from a river, somewhereup the river may be a battle field and there are bodies in it and the waterbrings the bacteria and parasites to your mouth. So althought the “New lifestyle campaign” became a joke as a whole, it was quitea success in promoting this wisdom of life. After PRC was founded in 1949, thegovernment kept promoting this in the “Patrioticsanitation campaign” and it trulybecame a habit for Chinese people.
The habit of drinking warm water might become popular alongwith drinking boiled water habit too. Since you can not drink the water when itis too hot and when it becomes cool it may be contaminated again (and too longto wait).
And I have to add that another (more) possible reason isthat the habit of drinking boiled warm water came from the habit of drinkingtea. In the old time every restaurant served tea, let alone the teahouses. ManyChinese people got so used to tea that they cannot accept drinking raw water.Even peasants prefer infusions of leaves than raw water. A basic way to docharity was to build a shed on the road side and served tea to passengers. Infact, drinking raw water seemed to be a symbol of poor and uneducated people.The scholars and rich people always drink tea (or alcahol). And since teabecame rare after dacades of wars, the habit changed to drinking boild warmwater.
However drinking boiled warm water seems to do good toChinese people because their digestive system is generally more fragile thanpeople from colder regions. Many Chinese people need to drink warm water toavoid indigestion and constipation. In fact, drinking adequate warm water(about 40°C) can helpstimulate the intestinal peristalsis.

“喝白开水”的习惯在20世纪30年代由中华民国政府首次在全国推广，作为一种避免人们直接从河流或水井中饮水而患病的方法。这是“新生活方式运动”的一部分。白开水在20世纪以前是中国病人的治疗方法，在1860年到1950年漫长的混乱和战争时期，它成为一种保持健康的有效方法。例如，当你直接从河中饮水时，河上的某个地方可能是战场，里面有尸体，水会把细菌和寄生虫带到你的嘴里。因此，尽管“新生活方式运动”成为了一个笑话，但它在推广这种生活智慧方面还是相当成功的。1949年中华人民共和国成立后，政府在“爱国卫生运动”中不断推广，这成为了中国人的一种习惯。

饮用温水的习惯也可能随着饮用开水的习惯而流行。因为你不能在太热的时候喝水，当它变凉的时候，它可能又被污染了（而且等的时间太长了）。

我不得不补充说，另一个（更多）可能的原因是，饮用开水的习惯来自于喝茶的习惯。在过去，每一家餐馆都提供茶，更不用说茶馆了。许多中国人已经习惯了茶，他们不能喝生水。连农民也喜欢喝茶。做慈善的一个基本方法是在路边建一个棚子，给乘客上茶。事实上，饮用生水似乎是穷人和未受过教育的人的象征。学者和富人总是喝茶。由于茶在数十年的战争后变得很少见，这种习惯就变成了喝滚烫的热水。

然而，喝开水似乎对中国人有好处，因为他们的消化系统通常比来自寒冷地区的人更脆弱。许多中国人需要喝温水来避免消化不良和便秘。事实上，饮用足够的温水（约40°C）可以帮助刺激肠道蠕动。

Anonymous
Most answers are wrong, it's actually mainly historicalreason.
The picture above is a old water pump that once was widelyused in China, still used in some rural area, it's not very clean, sometime youcan see this worm in the water, you could have a serious diarrhea if you drinkit directly, so the government put a lot of effort on persuading people todrink boiled water.
Then, tap water was set up, and some people believe that tapwater contains chlorine, it's bad for your health, so they boil the water. Andtap water are not really clean, cause it goes through very long pipeline, itscolor looks different with the water station when it comes out of the tap, sopeople choose to drink purified water now. My family get the purified waterfrom the small water station in our village, it's healthier and tastes betterthan tap water, but the tradition is kept, we must boil the water before wedrink it.

大多数答案都是错的，这实际上主要是历史原因。
上图是一个古老的水泵，曾经在中国广泛使用，现在仍然在一些农村地区使用，它不是很干净，有时你可以在水中看到这种蠕虫，如果你直接喝的话，你可能会有严重的腹泻，所以政府在说服人们喝开水上下了很大的功夫。

然后，人们有了自来水，一些人相信自来水含有氯，这对你的健康有害，所以他们烧开了水。而自来水并不是真正干净的，因为它通过很长的管道，当它从水龙头出来的时候，它的颜色看起来和水站不一样，所以人们现在选择饮用纯净水。我的家人从我们村里的小水站获得纯净水，它比自来水更健康，味道更好，但传统是保留的，我们必须在喝之前把水煮沸。

Victoria Da
A few off the top of my head:
1. Brieflyintroduce the “water history” in my mind:
Since I was born in countryside and I still remembered it’s about 15 years ago, villagers tookwater from well and drank directly even they had tap water too. The water atthat time was very very clean and delicious.
However, as more and more people cutting forests, buildinghouses…the environment and water was getting worseand worse. We couldn’t drink thewater from well anymore and we could only reply on tap water. Tap water is akind of hard water, so we need to soften it by heating and make it accord withdrinking water standard.
Since some of us still wanted to drink cold water, wediscovered bottle water. But as more and more news revealed that bottle waterwas also unsafe, we need to use the same way to sterilize: boil.
2. Water qualityabroad conforms to the drinking standards, but water quality in China is comparativelybad and is getting worse and worse year by year.
3. Warm/boiledwater is beneficial to our stomach and our body while cold water may irritateyour stomach. One simple example: when a girl gets her period, warm water canease pain but cold water may aggravate.
4. It’s an oldworn habit…



Anonymous
Correction: we Chinese don't always drink warm water, but wealmost always drink boiled water (whether warm, cold, or at room temperature).
Water that had been boiled and cooled down are called 白开水 (báikāishuǐ). On the other hand, water that hadnot been boiled are called 白水 (báishuǐ) or 生水 (shēngshuǐ).
We boil water before drinking mainly to kill bacterialcontamination and keep the water clean, since not everyone had water filter inthe old days. This practice eventually got stuck with us because it has beenkept on for so long, and we now find it uncomfortable and weird to just drinkfrom the tap. I even know families that boil and filter their water, so theycould keep the water as drinkable as possible.
P.S. tap water in China are undrinkable without being boiledor filtered due to environment contamination and old pipelines.

更正:我们中国人并不总是喝温水，但我们几乎总是喝开水(无论是热的、冷的还是室温的)。
水被煮沸,冷却被称为白开水 。另一方面,水没有煮被称为白水 或生水 。

我们在喝之前先把水烧开，主要是为了杀灭细菌污染，保持水的清洁，因为以前并不是每个人都有水过滤器。这种做法最终让我们陷入了困境，因为这种做法已经持续了很长时间，我们现在发现，仅仅从水龙头里喝水是不舒服和奇怪的。我甚至知道有些家庭会煮沸并过滤他们的水，这样他们就能让水尽可能的饮用。
另外，由于环境污染和管道老化，中国的自来水不经煮沸或过滤就不能饮用。

Anonymous
The water purification process in China is not so advanced.Besides, after the process, there are some Chlorine and other harmful residueleft in the water, boiling water otherwise contributes to the water's purity,safer for people to drink. Some water pipes are old, which makes the water easyto be polluted,
and not taste good. I was once lived in an old building, thewater from the pipe, though boiled, tastes yucky. So I ordered bottled water tobe delivered regularly.
Last, when you feel cold, you need hot water, when you wannamake tea, you need hot water, for those kind of stuff, just no reason.

中国的水净化工艺并不先进。此外，经过这个过程后，水中还残留着一些氯和其他有害的残留物，沸水也有助于水的净化，人们饮用更安全。一些水管很旧，这使得水很容易被污染，有味。我曾经住在一幢老房子里，水管里的水虽然煮沸了，但喝起来却很恶心。所以我订了瓶装水定期送货。
最后，当你觉得冷的时候，你需要热水，当你想泡茶的时候，你需要热水，这些东西，没有理由。

Jonathan
Of course, thequestion is controversial. Some people report that their parents taught them todrink hot water with meals, because mixing cold liquids with hot meals is badfor the stomach. Others go further into the “science”of it, alleging that cold liquids solidify fats in your stomach, which cancause digestive problems, whereas hot liquids aid in digestion. Still otherscite the habit as having stemmed from the traditional need to boil water beforedrinking it to remove germs (and indeed, even today, you’re probably going to get sick if youdon’t boil Chinese tapwater before drinkingit). Most people, though, will probably give you the same answer I just gotfrom a friend: “It’s good for your health.”
That may be true, but from a scientific standpoint, itappears that neither the cold water fanatics nor China’s hot water purists have much of a case. According to thisarticle from Rumor has it about the issue, everything you eat and drink matchesyour internal body temperature fairly quickly once it’s in your stomach, and cold liquids do not “solidify fats” as anything solid is broken by the stomach’s powerful acids.
More interesting is that in the process of researching this,I discovered we just as curious about why Westerners would drink cold water asyou are about why Chinese traditionally drink hot water. Here are a fewtheories I discovered on some Chinese message boards:
Westerners like to eat “raw” food (thisbelief comes from the fact that some people like to eat rare steak) so theyalso prefer their water “raw” (i.e., unheated).
Because it’sannoying to wait for boiled water to cool off before you start drinking (orburn your mouth).
“Because foreigners think hot water is only for coffee andtea.”
Because in foreign countries you can drink water directlyfrom the tap rather than having to boil it.
Because foreigners aren’t used to drinking hot water!
I suspect that the real answers have more to do with historythan they do with science anyway. Americans (for example) have been drinkingtapwater directly for decades, so there’s no need to boil water. But Chinese tapwater needs to beboiled first. Will these habits change, then, as bottled water becomes morepopular in China and as tapwater becomes safer to drink? Who knows!
Also, it is interesting to note that there is a historicalstory about the Chinese government encouraged Chinese people drink hot water atthe beginning ofChina war of liberation. Since then more people get used ofdrinking hot water instead of cold water for health reason.

当然，这个问题是有争议的。有些人说他们的父母教他们吃饭时喝热水，因为把冷的液体和热的食物混合起来对胃不好。另一些人则更进一步，声称冷的液体会凝固你胃里的脂肪，这会引起消化问题，而热的液体则有助于消化。还有一些人认为，这种习惯源自于饮用前烧开水以去除细菌的传统需要(事实上，即使在今天，如果你不在饮用中国自来水前烧开水，你很可能会生病)。不过，大多数人可能会给你一个和我刚从朋友那里得到的同样的答案:“这对你的健康有好处。”

这可能是真的，但从科学的角度来看，似乎无论是冷水狂热者还是中国的热水净化器都不占多少理由。根据这篇关于这个问题的文章，你吃的和喝的东西一旦进入你的胃里，就会很快和你的体温匹配，而且冷的液体不会“凝固脂肪”，因为任何固体都被胃里强大的酸破坏了。

更有趣的是，在研究这个问题的过程中，我发现我们和你们一样好奇为什么西方人会喝冷水。以下是我在一些中国留言板上发现的一些理论:
西方人喜欢吃“生的”食物(这种想法来自于一些人喜欢吃生的牛排这个事实)，所以他们也更喜欢他们的水“生的”(也就是“生的”)。

因为等开水冷却后再喝(或烫伤自己的嘴)是很烦人的。
“因为外国人认为热水只用于咖啡和茶。”
因为在国外你可以直接从水龙头喝水，而不用煮沸。
因为外国人不习惯喝热水!

我怀疑真正的答案更多地与历史有关，而不是与科学有关。例如，美国人几十年来一直直接饮用自来水，所以没有必要把水烧开。但中国自来水必须先煮熟。随着瓶装水在中国越来越流行，自来水也越来越安全，这些习惯会改变吗?谁知道!
另外，有趣的是，有一个关于中国政府在解放战争初期鼓励中国人喝热水的历史故事。从那以后，越来越多的人出于健康的原因习惯喝热水而不是冷水。

Shaun Lawson
I think it's because they urbanized earlier than most of therest of the world, and also developed early science. Also, China is prettyarid, at the far end of the dry part of Asia and dependent on a small number ofrivers, most of which are runoff from the Himalayan glaciers. The Yellow River,where the center of Han civilization arose, is quite silty and really not thatbig in volume, so the water supply itself is limited. People learned to besomewhat hygenic, and were forced to by geography, early on.

Shaun Lawson
我认为这是因为他们的城市化比世界上大多数国家都要早，同时也发展了早期科学。此外，中国相当干旱，位于亚洲干旱地区的尽头，依赖于少量河流，其中大部分是来自喜马拉雅冰川的径流。黄河是汉文明的发祥地，它的泥沙很多，而且水量也不是很大，所以水资源本身就很有限。人们在很小的时候就学会了卫生，并且被地理因素所迫。

Yuqi
It is based on Chinese traditional medicine claiming thathuman body should be balanced by yin and yang, literally meaning coldness andwarmth. When someone gets cold and ill, it is believed in this theory that theperson has accumulated too much yin and should be countered by yang to achieveharmony in this person’s body.Drinking warm water is an approach.
Speaking from my personal experience, when I get cold I drinkhot water. Then I sweat and be back to health. drinking hot water, from mypoint of view, raises the temperatures of your internal organs and body tissueswhich only are functioning within a range of temperature, mostly slightly above36 Celsius degree. Human body then needs to expel the heat by sweating. Whensweating, blood vessels are being widened and blood circulation is beingaccelerated, rendering immune system being more Active. I think it works,albeit controversies being discussed by many.

它是基于中医的观点，认为人体应该由阴阳平衡，字面意思是冷和热。当有人感冒生病时，相信这个人累积了太多的阴气，应该被杨反击，在这个人的身体里达到和谐。喝温水是一种方法。

从我个人的经验来看，我感冒了就喝热水。然后我会流汗，然后恢复健康。从我的观点来看，喝热水可以提高你的内脏和身体组织的温度，而这些器官和组织只在一定的温度范围内发挥作用，大多略高于36摄氏度。人体需要通过出汗来排出热量。出汗时，血管扩张，血液循环加速，使免疫系统更加活跃。我认为它是有效的，尽管还有许多争议。

Talon Jensen
A lot of Chinese in Southern China drink hot water or teawhen it is hot outside because they believe it is good for the body. The fullanswer is more complex and probably includes the older tradition to boil waterfor drinking and just habit.
When I lived in Hong Kong and would visit friends I wouldalways be given hot water (my friends knew I didn’t drink common tea). It is rude to decline so I would drinkthe hot water and found it wasn’tas bad as I thought, I would sweat less in the summertime. But, being American,I still prefer something cold when it is hot.



Jack Forb
Partly because Chinese likes drinking tea, and tea leavesare usually put into hot water to release flavor. And then people develops reflex that drinkingpure hot water brings some imaginary flavor of tea ...
That works for me anyway.

部分原因是中国人喜欢喝茶，而茶叶通常被放入热水中以释放香味。然后人们会产生反射，喝纯热水会带来一些想象中的茶的味道…
反正我是这样做的。

Edwin van
Mostly because it is easier to handle as the cold water canhurt teeth and also the stomach. An additional reason is practicality as wateris safest after boil and it takes a long time to cool down.

主要是因为它更方便处理，因为冷水会伤害牙齿和胃。另外一个原因是实用性，因为水在沸腾后是最安全的，而且需要很长时间才能冷却。