Cultural difference
Aug. 8th, 2006 11:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellarienMy US colleagues have been commenting on the paucity of drinking fountains around here, which I hadn't even thought about.
It isn't that the water isn't safe. (Though I grew up with the notion that public drinking fountains, the few that existed, were unsanitary.) It isn't that buying bottled water is an entrenched part of the culture, though it's becoming more common.
It's just that casual public consumption of plain water isn't part of the culture -- and in the mild climate, it isn't a huge health issue. The British will consume hot tea and coffee at every opportunity, for sociability and warmth as well as thirst, but water? Newfangled American habit, almost as bad as excessively-iced soft drinks. My mother and I carry thermos flasks of hot coffee when we go hiking.
It isn't that the water isn't safe. (Though I grew up with the notion that public drinking fountains, the few that existed, were unsanitary.) It isn't that buying bottled water is an entrenched part of the culture, though it's becoming more common.
It's just that casual public consumption of plain water isn't part of the culture -- and in the mild climate, it isn't a huge health issue. The British will consume hot tea and coffee at every opportunity, for sociability and warmth as well as thirst, but water? Newfangled American habit, almost as bad as excessively-iced soft drinks. My mother and I carry thermos flasks of hot coffee when we go hiking.
