GO TO CHINA​ and you really don’t want to drink the tap water. It’s the biggest no-no going. Highly inadvisable. Nowhere in China can you take a sip from the tap and live to tell about it. You could be dying of thirst but still, it’s a no-go. You can dump a ton of halazone into this murk and you still got poison. Detonate a small germ-busting nuclear bomb the size of a pinhead in your cup, feel the tiny “flash burn” on your face, and with sunglasses watch the miniature mushroom cloud erupt before your eyes like a five-petaled lotus flower. Still there’s no guarantee all the bugs are dead. So unless you’re a camel whizzing through the country with a seven-day stash of Perrier in your hump, you’re going to need safe and palatable drinking water. I say palatable, as a fresh and delicious taste is also a consideration.

What to buy? All-natural Ice Dew brand springwater comes in convenient twelve-ounce bottles and it’s fricking delicious. If you’re planning to stay awhile and set up residence, you install a home dispenser and get the five-gallon Culligan-size water jugs. What you do is rustle up some friend/boyfriend handyman type, which for me is where Marcello comes in, hire a cab, and go on a water run. Pick up a ten-kilogram sack of white rice while you’re at it. Marcello is a professional soccer player and he’s in excellent physical condition. A jug on each shoulder is no problem for Marcello. I get him to lug fresh water jugs up six flights of stairs into my place and set a fresh jug in the water dispenser. The five-gallon jugs of Ice Dew come in opaque, dark-blue glass bottles. I’ve got a groovy blue neon light behind the dispenser, the whole setup is very art deco, very sleek; I couldn’t be happier. It’s too cool for words. You find yourself drinking extra water just for the fun of it.

I brush my teeth with Ice Dew. I wash my hair with Ice Dew and Bright and Shiny shampoo, and then I rinse with Ice Dew alone. You get that squeaky-clean feeling. Pinch the wet hair with your fingers and it really does squeak. An hour later, on the polluted streets of Chengdu, you are a walking grease pit again. But at least you had that hour. That’s the way I look at it.