Chapter 96

It may be that he is not used to sleeping in the new bed, or it may be other physical reasons. In short, song TIANYAO woke up at dawn. He put on his coat and gently opened the bedroom door. Shiye Hui was wrapping a blanket on the wooden bench in the living room. He had a good dream and didn't wake each other. Song TIANYAO quietly opened the door and was ready to go downstairs and take a rickshaw back to the hotel to make up his sleep.

As he crept past the second floor of his house, the door was pushed open. Song Chunliang came out with a bucket in both hands, followed by Zhao Meizhen with a large steamer behind him.

Song TIANYAO lowered his head depressed in his parents' wide eyes and sighed. Recently, everything has gone wrong. He should inquire about which temple's incense is effective and pay God to worship Buddha for luck.

"You don't even go home now, so you just go to bed on the third floor?" Zhao Meizhen pushed song Chunliang away with a large iron pot, gathered in front of song TIANYAO and said: "Are you going to sneak downstairs without seeing your parents? How's the widow? Let you... No? Widow Yun returned to Kowloon yesterday afternoon. Only shiye Hui came back at dinner? You slept with a man all night?"

"Do you believe that I'm drinking till dawn on the top floor?" song TIANYAO said to Zhao Meizhen with his head down powerlessly.

"I don't believe it. Why is your nasal sound so heavy? You're really going to have a hair dryer again, young man? Do you catch a cold? Go back to the house enterprise and I'll cook some ginger sugar water for you later."

Song TIANYAO yawned and said, "there's nothing wrong with your nose. Are you going to do it with me in the morning?"

"Go buy water." Zhao Meizhen answered casually and continued to ask her son why he ran upstairs to sleep in the middle of the night instead of going home.

Song TIANYAO ignored his mother's gossip: "didn't you connect the water pipe at home to supply water nine hours a day? This is not Kowloon. You don't have to buy water in the street."

"The water pipe at home is equipped with a watch. You have to collect money to open it. Every morning in this street, a firecandle ghost drives a water truck and takes a full bucket of water for five cents. Today, I'll buy a large bucket to store water. I'll walk away. We won't be able to go late." Originally, she wanted to continue questioning song TIANYAO, but when song TIANYAO mentioned fetching water, Zhao Meizhen immediately realized that gossip could ask again, but she had to take it right away, urging her husband to go downstairs to fetch water.

"When living in Kowloon, did the fire candle ghost not eat enough dirty water? The dirty water was used by the fire candle ghost to put out the fire. The rainwater was directly drawn from the pond. Now, although the water in the water pipe at home is not comparable to the mountain spring water drunk by the British ghost, it has been supplied after being slightly filtered. It is much cleaner than the water in the reservoir. It is no problem for people to drink after boiling , even if you drink raw water, there are fewer insects in your stomach than those in the fire candle ghost water truck. "Song TIANYAO stood at the entrance of the stairs to block his parents and began to dissuade.

When living in a squatter area in Kowloon, the song TIANYAO family had a big problem using water every day. Hong Kong is a city lacking in water resources. Although it is humid and rainy, the underground is mainly granite layer, which can not provide stable and sufficient groundwater. Moreover, the area is narrow and can not store a large amount of rainwater. The 15 reservoirs in Hong Kong, which mainly rely on rainwater storage, have a huge population surge after the war In front of us, the water supply has been far from meeting the water needs of Hong Kong people. As long as there was a slight shortage of rain in those years, the pond will soon dry to the bottom, forcing the Hong Kong colonial government to restrict the water supply.

So last year, in 1950, the water supplies Department of the colonial government of Hong Kong had to set up an independent sea water (salt water) The pipeline is used to meet the needs of residents in residential areas on Hong Kong Island to flush the toilet, avoid wasting fresh water resources, and levy salt water charges to subsidize fresh water expenses. In addition, there is little rain this year and the water storage capacity of the pond is insufficient. Therefore, the time limit for daily fresh water supply has been reduced from 12 hours of daily water supply last year to nine hours.

It doesn't mean that 12 hours of daily water supply means that everyone can happily turn on the water pipe at home and use the surging tap water. In 1950, the pressure of tap water in Hong Kong was very low. According to the four storey Guangzhou style arcade where the song TIANYAO family lived at this time, the water volume on the first floor is the largest. If all residents in Hong Kong turn on the water pipe at home at the same time, they can fill a bucket in about ten minutes, while on the second floor, it is the same In this state, it takes about half an hour or even more to fill a bucket of water. It takes four or five hours or more to fill a bucket of water on the third floor. As for the fourth floor, it's like raindrops on the eaves. It's lucky that they can barely drip water. If someone is unlucky to rent a Tang building on the fifth and sixth floors, they can only carry a bucket downstairs every day to ask the residents on the first floor to borrow some water Come and eat. Your water pipe is absolutely dry and can smoke.

Therefore, almost every morning after the start of water supply, high-rise residents can be heard shouting to residents on the first and second floors on Hong Kong Island: "bolt the water pipe downstairs!"

Even in order to store water, tenants on the fourth and fifth floors have a big fight with residents on the first and second floors. There are more than a dozen cases in a year.

Because the water pipes on the first and second floors are not closed, even if the water pipe switch is turned to the maximum on the fourth and fifth floors, it is unlikely to fill half a bucket of water in nine hours.

Therefore, even the residents living in the Tang house on Hong Kong Island have limited water supply every day, so it can be imagined that the slums in Kowloon have no time to pay attention to these people at the bottom. The residents of the wooden house area can only find ways to raise funds, entrust capable people to select a site to dig a fresh water well that can barely take water, or gather dozens of people to run to Kowloon guarded by armed police officers and British troops The pond carries water secretly at risk, etc.

The firecandle ghost is actually a name for firefighters. Since frequent fires of different sizes occurred in many poor wooden housing areas in Kowloon, the Hong Kong colonial government bought a number of water tankers dedicated to fire fighting, which gave these firecandle ghosts a chance to make a fortune. They filled the water tankers from the pond every day and drove them to sell water near the wooden housing area. In Kowloon, a bucket came from the pond, Water that has not been filtered and precipitated is priced from 10 cents to 20 cents by the candle ghost. When the water supply is seriously restricted, it is even more priced at more than 50 cents per barrel.

In the Jiulong wooden house area, in addition to the consumption of cooking and drinking water, the remaining water has to meet the needs of the whole family to wash, wash clothes, scrub household belongings, and finally flush the clean bucket. It is common, and it is on the premise that no matter how many people there are in the family.

From the 1920s to 1951, in Hong Kong, almost all ordinary Chinese need to rush for a bucket of water that is far from clean, with the exception of those British and wealthy Chinese businessmen, because they have exclusive access to two or three sweet mountain springs in Hong Kong.

This is why song TIANYAO started with insect repellents. As many as 95% or more people in Hong Kong drink rainwater purified and precipitated only by simple alum and chemicals. There are three filter stations on Hong Kong Island, and only one has deep filtration and purification capacity, but it is only responsible for providing purified mountain spring water for the British and the rich, It is completely isolated from the public water supply system and exists independently. The remaining two filter stations simply can not complete the task of purifying the daily water supply of Hong Kong Island residents. When the water supply is urgent, it is often to sprinkle some alum before the purification is over, and then immediately transport it into the tap water pipeline and flow into thousands of households. The degree of purification of this kind of water can be imagined.

As for the Kowloon area, there is only one filter station to provide purification and sedimentation for the Kowloon reservoir, but the Kowloon reservoir is a standby reservoir, not a daily water supply reservoir. The filter station has been shut down during non emergency periods. Therefore, the quality of the water that most people in Kowloon drink is equal to how dirty the rain is, how dirty the water they drink.

In this environment, song TIANYAO told Mrs. Beth that 80% of people in Hong Kong suffer from parasitic diseases due to drinking raw or unclean water. It is no exaggeration.

Children are tired of playing in the street. When they go home, they will drink raw water directly. When coolies on the wharf catch their breath, they also pour raw water into their mouth. Even factory workers and factory owners can't prepare hot water for them to drink slowly. It can be called conscientious to provide enough raw water for them to drink.

"What's the difference? It's not the same to put some alum in it. You drink this kind of water since childhood. You don't get sick when you grow up? Even if there are insects in your belly, you can go out sooner or later. It'll be fine." Zhao Meizhen put down the large steamer in her hand and said to song TIANYAO dissatisfied: "Take care of yourself. Don't forget your roots after being a Secretary for a few days, and forget the hardships of the previous years after a few days of easy tea and rice."

"If you put out one, there will only be more in your belly. Don't believe it?" song TIANYAO took out his wallet, counted out 80 or 90 change bills, calmly handed it to Zhao Meizhen and said word by word: "If you go to the nearest Western pharmacy, you need to buy a bottle of shantulian insect repellent made in the United States. It's the cheapest one. After you buy it, you can eat one pill with me, Lao Dou and Wenwen. When you go to the toilet, you'll know how many worms there are in your stomach. If I'm wrong, I'll help you buy fire ghost water every morning Remember, one pill per person. Eating too much is bad for your health. "

After her son sank her face, Zhao Meizhen really didn't dare to use her mother's identity to justify herself. She muttered a few words that she dared to talk back to her parents as a secretary, looked at the change in her hand, and finally said: "I believe you once. I'll let you buy it later. Fifty seven yuan a bottle? It's enough to buy more than a dozen pairs of traditional Chinese medicine at the pharmacy! It's better to save money by eating chancroid powder and expelling insects. One pair is less than one yuan... Forget it, listen to you. If it doesn't work, I think you'll tell me something."

"By the way, remember to buy me some western medicine for treating wind and cold." song TIANYAO sucked some uncomfortable nasal cavity and turned to walk downstairs.

Zhao Meizhen shouted in the back, "you go to Biandu in the morning? I'll cook ginger soup for you and come back."

"I remember to take medicine at home in the evening. I want to see someone in the morning. I remember to buy insect repellent. If I dare not buy it, I won't give it to my family. In addition, I go to the third floor all night to live with shiye Hui." song TIANYAO said, and he had walked out of the corridor.

Only Zhao Meizhen's cries and curses echoed in the corridor.

He really wants to meet someone, the boss of Liheng trading company, Chu Xiaozhong, the eldest son of the Chu family.