I don't know about you, but I drink water when I'm thirsty and am in need of refreshment. And when I'm thirsty and in need of refreshment, I want something cold, preferably with ice. Back where I come from (as in the good ol' US of A), water, soda or juice are automatically served cold or iced, no questions asked.
Not so in China. My friend Ning explained that traditional Chinese medicine recommends drinking lukewarm water close to the body temperature so as to not to overburden the internal organs. Makes sense. But yet...
The most interesting experience with this was when N and I went on a lunch date at Cafe Liao, which is a luxurious buffet at the Shangri La here. We love that restaurant, by the way. It has an Eastern food section as well as Western (including an Indian food section... wait, would that be Eastern or Western?), imported cheeses and gourmet deli meat, a killer dessert bar complete with homemade ice cream, just to name a few of their offerings. We were served warm water, and being a thirsty pregnant lady who is probably running a few degrees warmer than normal, I requested iced water. The server looked at me nervously and murmured something in Chinese, that I took to NOT mean, "Sure, no problem." A few minutes later, the manager of the restaurant comes to our table and double confirms that it indeed is ice water that I wanted. He then nervously cautioned me that it IS snowing outside and that I AM pregnant... I insisted that it was OK and he brought me the ice water, though hesitantly.
I almost always get a similar reaction when I ask for ice water when we go out to eat. A lot of times, they are taken aback or confused. Sometimes they just flat out say no, not because they are refusing to serve me what I want, but simply because they don't have it available. I think a lot of restaurants just boil the tap water (which "they" say is not safe to drink straight from the tap), and that's all they have. If you want soda, it comes room temperature, or at best cool but with no ice.
A friend of mine suggested that maybe the ice they have is the issue, that it hasn't been made with previously boiled or filtered water.
Oh.
Well, even IF I've been drinking ice water with contaminated ice, I have yet to get seriously sick so I guess it's OK.
