Jottings from the Granite Studio

As the dog days of summer descend on Beijing…word from The China Daily that 50% of the water used in water coolers across the city of Beijing is probably fake or substandard: either straight tap water or water from smaller brands with lower quality standards repackaged with ’seals of quality’ for sale to Beijing homes and businesses.

This one hits close to home. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a large mammal from a cold climate forced to live in the sauna/industrial coal elevator that is Beijing in July. I drink A LOT of water. Now you can’t even trust that.

So when I read this article, I went into full Pacino mode (think GF2 when Michael surprises Frankie Pants at the old Corleone home in New York):

“The water…IN MY HOME! IN MY BEDROOM! What my wife uses to make zhou… and what my hamster drinks, when he’s done…playing…on his wheel!”

Okay, so the line works better if you’re a Mafia don with children, but you get my point.

From the CD:

Up to half of the water used in water coolers across China’s capital could be “fake,” or not as pure as its manufacturers claim, state media said on Tuesday of the latest in a series of health scares.

The bogus water was either tap water or purified water of miscellaneous small brands poured into empty barrels sealed with quality standard marks, Liu Xiaoyun, the Beijing sales manager of a bottled water brand said.

Liu said the counterfeits began to appear in Beijing in 2002, five years after barrelled, as opposed to bottled, water emerged as an industry.

Four suppliers dominated the water cooler market, Liu was quoted as saying. Of an annual sales volume of at least 200 million barrels, 100 million were counterfeit.

Overall, a barrel of fake water costs bogus producers only 2.5 yuan ($0.33) to 3 yuan, whereas the real ones cost them 6 yuan each. “In either case, a barrel of water is sold at well over 10 yuan in the market.”

The lack of supervision had given “leverage” to counterfeit makers in each chain of the production process, from corporate distributors to unauthorised workshops and water delivery stations.

Three years ago, a nationwide inspection on barrelled water found a 22 percent substandard rate. In the most serious case, 80 percent of barrelled water in the southern province of Jiangxi was reportedly not the real thing.

There has been a lot of talk among the chattering classes who follow China regarding a new consumer movement–similar to what happened during the Progressive Era in the United States–to force better safety standards. This seems to miss the point: The Roosevelt Administration (that would be Teddy if you’re scoring at home) was particularly sensitive to the revelations from Upton Sinclair and others BECAUSE T.R. HAD AN ELECTION TO WIN. The boys sitting around Zhongnanhai with their man purses and er nai have less of an incentive–though in true Corleone style they did off one of their own this week after he allowed unsafe drugs to be sold in China in exchange for…wait for it…cash payments. There’s a culture of casual corruption in government here that makes Tammany Hall look like a civics class and it’s all gonna get uglier before it gets better.