Introduction
The supply of water to cities, whether in the east or the west, always passes through a process from traditional forms of drawing naturally from rivers to industrialized supply through pipes. In Europe, although London saw the establishment of a water company in the fifteenth century, industrial water supply involving steam-pumped water did not appear until the early eighteenth century. In the early nineteenth century, London had as many as 10 water companies, each of which had its own water supply district.Footnote 1 This situation remained until 1872, when the city council passed the Metropolis Water Act which merged the companies into a single public entity.Footnote 2 A water company appeared in Paris in 1778, but as a result of pollution of the Seine, city water quality was not assured until after the 1960s when another source of water was developed.Footnote 3 In modern China, water supplied according to the methods of industrial production, i.e. tap water, began in the nineteenth century. Tap water appeared in Hong Kong in 1863, Shanghai in 1883, in Tianjin and Qingdao in 1899, and so on.
In recent years, historians have done a number of studies on the impact of tap water supplies on cities. Some have focused on the effect that tap water had on the establishment of public health systems in modern cities.Footnote 4 Others have stressed the role of tap water in the process of urban modernization, or they have noted the contradictions and conflicts between tap water and traditional supplies of water.Footnote 5 In this article, I focus primarily on the links between tap water supply networks and the construction of modern urban spaces. The complex historical environment of late Qing – early Republican Chinese cities gave rise to intricate links between water supply and urban politics. The presence of the Eight-Nation Settlement and the fracturing of the city's administrative systems led to a complex interaction between the formation of tap water systems and urban administrative districts that had been carved out by foreign powers. The city's different social groups (Chinese, foreigners and different social classes) and the city's different organs of government (the municipal authorities and foreign companies) played different roles in the construction of the city's modernity. Tap water greatly improved the city's public health, changed the lifestyles of different classes and changed concepts relating to health and hygiene. An explication of the Tianjin case can reveal to us both how modern urban spaces were reconstructed through this historical process and the diverse representations of urban modernity.
One city, two systems
Prior to the appearance of tap water, Chinese cities generally drew their water from rivers, lakes or wells; city governments in the traditional era never concerned themselves with public affairs of this sort, and urban water supply problems were always solved by the people themselves. Tianjin is on the plains of northern China. Although it is located at the ‘lower reaches of the Nine Rivers’, in an area with ample river water, the process of the drawing and supplying of water for urban use presents difficulties.
Tianjin underwent its initial phase of development during the Ming dynasty, but the salinity of the ground water presented a problem. Local records compiled during the reign of the Qianlong emperor record 10 water wells inside the city. Some were in yamen or temples, and others had been dug for private use by rich and influential families. There were also some wells, the so-called ‘righteous wells’, which were for public use. The majority of these had been abandoned because they were ‘bitter and salty’. There was only one sweet water well. It was in a private residence, and it had silted up long ago.Footnote 6 The problem continued, as according to records from the mid-nineteenth century, there were 25 old wells in Tianjin, but none of them was supplying potable water.Footnote 7 Despite these wells, most Tianjin residents drew water directly from rivers and canals outside of the city. A Qing dynasty map of Tianjin is marked ‘water access’ both on the edge of the canal outside of the city's northern gate and on the shore of the Hai River outside the eastern gate.Footnote 8 City residents relied mainly on deliveries by water carriers. To transport water, the carriers used one- or two-wheeled carts on which they loaded wooden water boxes. The city also had ‘water houses’ for the storage of water, and boiled water was sold by the side of the street. During the reign of the Qianlong emperor, there was a poem that described how the people of Tianjin drank water: ‘Everywhere in the city the springs have run dry. The two hills and the two eyes [names for two wells in the city] are also desolate. Every household drinks more of the North Gate water. The city water carriers are busy in the extreme.’Footnote 9 As the urban population increased and urban districts expanded, the supply of water became more problematic. The water carts, with their iron-hoop and wood wheels, were incessantly jolted as they travelled over the potholed streets and alleys. The rivers froze in the winter, and the need to chisel the ice made the process of drawing water that much more difficult. The very high price of water became a significant burden on the lives of the people.
Water use changed in the city at the end of the nineteenth century when tap water supplies became available. At the time, Tianjin was an open, commercial port in which multinational settlements had been established. With the introduction of western capital and various forms of science and technology, Tianjin witnessed the emergence of natural gas, telegraph, electric power, electric streetcars and tap water. At the time, the presence of eight foreign settlements in addition to the Chinese district meant that the city had nine administrative jurisdictions. The establishment of a water supply system required the laying of a network of pipes, and thus the fact that political space had been carved into pieces constituted an obstacle to tap water supply. Tap water first appeared within one administrative district, the British Settlement.
After tap water became available in Shanghai in the 1880s, the foreign residents of the British Settlement brought up the issue of water supply.Footnote 10 At the time, the public finances of the settlement were limited. The Municipal Council lacked the means to construct a water supply system and could only rely on private investment. However, the citizens of the British Settlement had instituted a system of self-government, and water supply, as a matter that bore on the public interest, had to be discussed and voted on by the General Meeting of Land Renters. Initially, the main point of controversy was whether the Municipal Council, as the administrative authority in the settlement, should be responsible for the safety of the water supply. Following a major outbreak of cholera in 1895 in Tianjin, the earliest possible establishment of a tap water supply system became an urgent necessity for the settlement. The managers of some foreign firms jointly proposed that a water company be organized.Footnote 11 At the time, settlement residents drank water directly from the Hai River. Since the British Settlement was located on the lower reaches of the Hai River, there was widespread concern in settlement society over the possibility that the Hai River had become a sewer for the dumping of wastewater and garbage by Old City residents upstream of the settlement and that the water of the Hai River was a medium for the spread of germs. Proper water sourcing was the key to supplying settlement residents with clean domestic water. Some people advocated the use of deep well water as a water source, but the drilling of deep wells would have required substantial investment. Moreover, tests had indicated excessively high salt and sulphur content in well water. Ultimately, it was decided that Hai River water would be used as the source for water supply.Footnote 12
In 1898, Gibb, Livingston & Company initiated the organization of the ‘Tianjin Running Water Company’ with Mackenzie & Company, Wilson & Company and other foreign firms also participating. In an agreement with the Settlement Municipal Council, the company promised to supply filtered water of the same standard as that which was supplied to Shanghai at a rate not to exceed 15 wen per gallon. In addition, the company had to provide the settlement with water at a low price for municipal use, such as for washing streets, flushing sewers and running artificial fountains. The Municipal Council then granted the company the right to operate tax free for 25 years, to lay lines in any zone or street of the settlement, and to install fire hydrants. In November of the same year, the company completed the laying of tap water lines, and in January 1899, the water works were built and began to supply water.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the daily output capacity of the British Settlement water works was 300,000 gallons. By 1922, maximum daily supply was 980,000 gallons.Footnote 13 However, the British Settlement developed quickly during this same period of time. Its territory expanded from 489 mu to 6,178 mu, and the population of the settlement grew from 6,030 in 1906 to 35,200 in 1925.Footnote 14 Meanwhile, the growth in the overall population of Tianjin and the sharp rise in its industrial activities greatly intensified the pollution of the Hai River. The entire Old City remained without an effective sewage system until the Republican period. The residents of the Old City failed to change their bad habit of thoughtlessly dumping waste into waterways. In addition, increasingly severe industrial pollution also became a great threat to the water supply system. Many industrial enterprises were built along the upper Hai River, and the quality of the British Settlement's water deteriorated because of wastewater discharged into the Hai River by factories.Footnote 15 By the 1920s, the safety of the water supply systems had once again become a matter of grave concern in settlement society.Footnote 16
In 1923, the agreement that the ‘Tianjin Running Water Company’ had signed with the Municipal Council expired, and the General Meeting of Electors in the British Settlement decided to terminate the agreement.Footnote 17 It established the Municipal Council Waterways Office to manage the water works; settlement water supply thus underwent a transformation from commercial operation to public utility, and water supply safety became the primary concern. The Settlement Municipal Council thus invited Shanghai's water supply experts and the chief engineer of Ji'an Water Works to assess the water supply safety problem. They found that, though the current purification installation in the British Settlement water works was effective and generally could eliminate 95 per cent of bacteria from the water, the Hai River was likely to be severely polluted by pathogens in the event of an epidemic, for the Hai River water on which the water works relied was always subject to pollution.Footnote 18 In order to ensure water supply safety, the Municipal Council decided to abandon the Hai River water source gradually and switch to deep well water. In 1922, the water works also began using chlorides for purification.Footnote 19 In 1925, the British Settlement began drilling deep wells and by 1934, had completed the transition to deep well water supply. Additionally, all water works power, which had been supplied by steam engines and boilers, was supplied by electricity and internal combustion engines. The water works equipment and technical process design were the most advanced of their kind at the time.
Old City water supply commenced when Tianjin was ruled by the Provisional Government of Tientsin established by the Eight-Nation Alliance. In March 1901, three Chinese merchants, Jui Yu Kim, Ma Yu Ching and Ch'en Chi I submitted a joint application to the Provisional Government for the founding of Tianjin Ji'an Water Works Co. Ltd (official English name: Tientsin Native City Water Works Co. Ltd) in order to establish a tap water supply system in the Old City. The application was very quickly approved by the Provisional Government on the condition that the water source be canal water, that filtration facilities be installed, that water faucets and fire-fighting storage ponds be established at regular intervals along district streets and that the water be supplied at the same price as the Chinese residential districts of Shanghai.Footnote 20 At the same time, the three merchants submitted the matter to Li Hongzhang, then viceroy of Zhili, and obtained his approval. Interestingly, the petition was submitted to Li Hongzhang by the American Charles Denby, Jr, secretary general of the Provisional Government, ‘on behalf of’ the three Chinese merchants. Moreover, it was guaranteed by Denby and by the manager of Arnhold, Karberg & Co. This fact is apparent from Li Hongzhang's official reply:
The petition states that Jui Yu Kim, Ma Yu Ching, and Ch'en Chi I are men of substance and reliable and that moreover they have received guarantees from said merchant (referring to Denby) and Arnhold, Karberg & Co. Thus, they should be permitted to found the Tianjin Ji'an Water Works Co. Ltd and to launch it with shares offered to Chinese and foreign merchants.Footnote 21
On 15 August 1902, Tianjin was handed over to Yuan Shih-kai by the Provisional Government. While managing the transfer of political power to Yuan Shih-kai, the Provisional Government put forward many conditions that the Qing government would have to accept and implement. One of these was the agreement to establish Ji'an Water Works.Footnote 22 Therefore, when Yuan Shih-kai took the reins of power, he very quickly approved the establishment of that company.Footnote 23 The Ji'an Water Works facility was built at Jieyuan on the southern bank of the South Canal, and it was from the South Canal that it drew its water. Subsequently, it also drew water from the Ziya River. In March 1903, the Jieyuan facility was completed and began supplying water to the Old City. In 1904, after just one year of operation, the company was selling 3.8 million gallons a month, or an average of 120,000 gallons of water daily.Footnote 24 After the founding of the republic, Ji'an Water Works developed even more rapidly. In 1929, the company's daily output of water was 4 million gallons in the summer and 3 million gallons in the winter, and 60 per cent of the supplied water was used in residences.Footnote 25 By the 1930s, the daily output of Ji'an Water Works was increasing at a rate of roughly 200,000 gallons daily, but supply still could not keep up with demand, and so 5-inch water mains were replaced with 12-inch water mains in order to increase output.Footnote 26 In 1931, the total length of the tap water lines laid by Ji'an reached 144 kilometres, and daily water supply increased to 6 million gallons.
The application to found the Ji'an company was made in the name of Chinese merchants, but the company ended up as a Sino-foreign joint venture that was run primarily by foreigners. The original petition to found the company had indicated that the company would ‘separately invite foreign equity for joint operation’. Li Hongzhang, in his official reply, also agreed that the company would be constituted from ‘Chinese and foreign capital.’ After Ji'an was established, it was registered in Hong Kong by Arnhold, Karberg & Co. as a joint-stock company. As the proportion of foreign investment increased, Ji'an became a company that was primarily owned and operated by westerners. Its first chairman of the board was Denby, and its general manager was W. Pape, a German. After World War I, British presence increased considerably within the company, and the general manager position was now filled by J.R. Harber.
The supply of water according to industrial methods had a revolutionary impact on cities. The conveyance through pipes of clean water integrated entire cities into single systems and thereby spatially freed them from reliance on waterways. Many aspects of growth – urban planning and the development of new districts, economic development, population flows, and so on – now had to operate within these new ecological systems. At the same time, water was a public health factor closely linked to all social classes and government functions.Footnote 27 However, the existence of the concessions divided urban politics and led to the emergence of multiple water supply systems within a single city. In Shanghai, for example, which had just the International Settlement and the French Settlement, four water companies emerged. Water supply lines were laid separately without interconnections, and water quality and prices varied.Footnote 28 Tianjin had nine administrative districts. Ultimately, two water supply systems were formed. An investigation into the causes of this outcome reveals that one of the factors was environmental.
In its early stage, the British Settlement water works used the Hai River, but were unable to assure hygiene, for they were located on its lower reaches. Later, when river water was replaced by deep well water, water quality deteriorated and was called ‘salt water’. The Ji'an water works used river water to produce tap water. Ji'an selected an upstream site on the Yun River as its water source and later added the Ziya River as a second source. These rivers at that time did not flow into residential districts of the city, and their water was subject to very little human pollution. It was of a relatively high quality and referred to as ‘sweet water’. In addition, the water works site was on the outskirts of the city and could be easily expanded. Therefore, this company had ample water sources to produce tap water, and it was the preferred choice of urban consumers. Domestic needs and commercial interests overcame political divisions. Ji'an, which was run primarily by Westerners, relied on foreigners’ privileges in China to transcend political boundaries and continually expand its water supply network.
Soon after Ji'an was established, ways were sought of expanding the water supply district into the settlements. In 1903, very soon after it had begun to supply water, it signed an agreement with the Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Italian Settlements, which were located on the eastern shore of the Hai River, to lay water pipes and supply water. It thus obtained concessionary rights to lay water pipes across settlement boundaries and to sell the water in the settlements for a term of 15 years. The company promised to supply superior-quality water at preferential prices to the residents of the settlements and also to supply low-priced water for settlement fire fighting and landscaping.Footnote 29 In 1915, Ji'an also signed an agreement with the Japanese Settlement Municipal Council to supply all water in that settlement to the Municipal Council, which would then resell the water to settlement households. The term of the agreement was 10 years.Footnote 30
In the British Settlement, after the Municipal Council took over management of the water company in 1923, water was supplied not under commercial management as previously, but under public management. The French Settlement, whose water had been supplied by this company, was now supplied by Ji'an. In 1934, the Chinese government established water works that supplied water to the First Special District (formerly the German Settlement), which had been supplied by the British Settlement water works. However, due to poor management, the arrangement could not be sustained, and Ji'an took over operations. By this time, Ji'an's water supply district included the settlements of six nations and the Chinese district. It had become the largest urban water supply system. ‘More than any other organization, it approximated a true municipal public health agency.’Footnote 31
However, with the rise of Chinese nationalism in the 1920s and 1930s, the ambiguous nature of Ji'an's ownership and the monopoly powers of British merchants were subject to challenges and opposition. Within the company, Chinese engineers and technicians of other nationalities united in opposition to the British.Footnote 32 After the Nationalist Government was established, it enacted the Company Law to put foreign enterprises in China on a correct footing. In 1936, the Nationalists indicated that, since Ji'an was a Sino-foreign joint venture, the inclusion of the characters for ‘British company’ in its Chinese title did not comply with the Company Law and requested that the company be re-registered with the Chinese government. The Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Industry of the Nationalist Government drew up registration procedures especially for the company. That is, they required that its Chinese name be ‘Zhongguo Tianjin Ji'an Zilaishui Gufen Youxian Gongsi (China Tianjin Ji'an Water Works Co. Ltd)’ and that its official English name be changed to ‘Tientsin Water Works Co. Ltd’. At least 51 per cent of company shares had to be held by Chinese, and a majority of directors had to be Chinese. Both the positions of chairman and general manager would have to be filled by Chinese. The Nationalist Government further required that Tientsin Water Works would have a term of operations of 30 years at the expiration of which it could be ‘purchased for public operation’. The company enjoyed exclusive rights of operation, but was also required to supply for no consideration 16 million gallons of water annually for washing road surfaces and to accept supervision from the municipal government. Water prices required government authorization and could not be raised arbitrarily. As for the water itself, ‘in order to comply with standards, it must pass chemical and microbial tests to prove that it poses no threat to public health as drinking water’.Footnote 33
In January 1937, a special shareholders’ meeting of the company passed a resolution to re-register and reorganize in compliance with the requests of the Chinese government. Chinese shareholder and local merchant Ning Caixuan was appointed chairman of the board of the reorganized Ji'an Water Works. Lu Kaiyuan, son of the Chinese shareholder and local industrialist Lu Muzhai, filled the position of general manager. J.R. Harber, the former general manager, became assistant general manager. Liu Boqi, a Chinese who had graduated from Cornell University, took over as engineer in chief.
Water supply and the evolution of urban life
The establishment of a tap water system can provide a tremendous impetus to the evolution of urban lifestyles. It influences multiple aspects of life: clothing, eating, housing, hygiene, and so on. In Tianjin, the differences between the settlements and the Old City with respect to urban development, culture and other aspects, diversified this evolution and caused it to proceed at different paces.
The effects of tap water on settlement life were direct. Concern among settlement residents over river pollution and the risk of epidemics from drinking river water were the major factors behind the appearance of tap water. Therefore, British Settlement residents welcomed tap water as soon as it became available from the settlement's water works. In the early twentieth century, more than half of British Settlement households were receiving tap water, and water closets and flush toilets began appearing in residences.Footnote 34
The establishment of water supply systems gave impetus to the building of a public health infrastructure, particularly sewage systems. In the early twentieth century, most streets in the British Settlement still had open sewers. Nightmen drove their carts into residences and emptied faeces from chamber pots. Starting in the Republican period, the settlement led the way in putting in place a public sewer system. The Municipal Council required that all types of buildings set up standardized septic tanks which were tied into public sewer lines.Footnote 35 Regulations drafted in 1918 for the British Settlement specified that every building was to be provided with water closets, waste discharge equipment and other sanitation facilities.Footnote 36 In 1921, the British Settlement made septic tanks mandatory for all residences. Moreover, all indoor waste discharge lines now had to be connected to public sewer lines, with the result that integrated systems that included both water supply and waste discharge appeared in all buildings. At the end of the same year, the British Settlement ended use of manure carts. The large-scale use of new sanitation equipment resulted in a rapid increase in the number of households supplied with tap water. In a period of less than one year spanning late 1922 and early 1923, the number of households supplied with tap water in the British Settlement increased from 547 to 717. High-class residences built in the 1930s featured multiple lavatories, and some were equipped with special WCs for servant use. In 1914, the British Settlement's isolation hospital, which exclusively admitted and treated infectious disease patients, had hot and cold water, bathrooms, water closets and septic tank sewage systems.Footnote 37 The large increase in the volume of water used and the rapid growth in settlement population led to water shortages. In the summer months, the Municipal Council often released water conservation notices requesting that residents avoid wasting water and store water during off-peak hours, that they minimize the amount of water used in gardens and stop using water for fountains or other unnecessary purposes, and that they carefully inspect their homes for leaks.Footnote 38
After the French Settlement began receiving water from the British Settlement water works in 1903, a building code was drafted that required buildings in districts ‘that were exclusively for the residence of westerners’ to be ‘constructed without exception in the western fashion’.Footnote 39 Western residential building spaces are clearly divided according to function, and the installation of sanitation equipment requires water supply and water disposal facilities. Therefore, the drafting of these codes obviously could not be separated from the water supply systems. According to municipal regulations drafted by the French Settlement in the 1920s, each residence was required to build a separate WC, while each residence with rooms to let had to have one WC per three rooms. All public places, such as theatres, bath houses, hotels and emporia, were required to build public lavatories able to accommodate simultaneous use by 20 persons. The lavatories had to be equipped with automatically supplied water tanks for flushing, and the lavatory sewer lines had to connect to the public sewer system.Footnote 40
The Italian Settlement was supplied by Ji'an Water Works. By the early Republican era, a complete water supply system and other important infrastructure had been built in this settlement, and the impact on construction was substantial. The building code promulgated by the Italian Settlement in 1924 strictly limited construction in most districts to western-style buildings, and it established specific regulations for sanitation facilities within buildings. For example, each building was required to have water supply and drain lines and private digging of water wells was prohibited. Flush toilets and baths in residential lavatories had to be linked to septic tanks and settlement sewer lines. The regulations even specified the materials and sizes of the pipes connecting to the sanitation facilities.Footnote 41
Effective water supply systems and a complete infrastructure provided a foundation for settlement development. The high-class home building craze of the 1920s and 1930s emerged in just this environment. These high-class homes were concentrated in the British, French and Italian Settlements. The majority were designed by European architects, and the residents were generally upper-class Chinese, such as war lords, bureaucrats and aristocratic ‘ex-pats’, as well as wealthy compradors, merchants and industrialists. These residences were designed to embody modern architectural styles. Whether villa-type residences or high-class flats, they were distinctive in terms of their structure and their exterior design, and their indoor sanitation facilities were well suited to modern lifestyles. However, not all settlement residents could accept or enjoy such a life. The Japanese Settlement, for example, had tap water in the 1920s. Yet many homes were not equipped with flush toilets. The high cost of purchasing and installing the necessary plumbing fixtures and the high water bills resulting from increased water use were perhaps the main reasons that many families did not install flush toilets. However, there were also lifestyle-related factors. By 1928, only 800 of the 4,000 families in the Japanese Settlement had installed a flush toilet, but 100 still used chamber pots. Therefore, the services of the nightmen remained in demand in the Japanese Settlement, in spite of its having established water and sewage systems.Footnote 42
In the Old City, the arrival of tap water in the early twentieth century was viewed as a sign of progress and a symbol of modernization similar to the arrival of electric street cars, electric lamps, telegraph and telephones and the water tower that rose 110 feet high at the north-western corner of the Old City became a landmark. Steam rollers and water spray carts, which were considered advanced equipment at the time, ran up and down the streets of the Old City. These distinctive features of early twentieth-century Tianjin appeared in an English-language Tianjin tourism guide which was published at the end of the Qing dynasty.Footnote 43 However, the people of the Old City did not immediately accept tap water. The natives of Tianjin, whose ancestors had ‘grown up drinking river water’, were initially suspicious of water that came out of iron pipes. They called it ‘machine water’, and a rumour spread among them that drinking it would lead to infertility. On 30 March 1903, the Jieyuan facility of Ji'an Water Works began to supply water. The company performed a water service opening ceremony and held a water cannon fire-extinguishing demonstration. Because the company had been established with the approval of Yuan Shih-kai, the local Qing officials naturally had no choice but to attend.
Problems continued, and the Ji'an Water Works offered free drinking samples to win over the populace. An announcement stated the company ‘will offer water (free of charge) from six taps – by the roads through the four gates of the prefectural city and by the roads at the north-eastern and north-western corners of the city, and on 3 April tickets will be sold for the purchase of water’.Footnote 44 Local officials of the circuit, prefecture and county levels went with the Ji'an managers to inspect the wellhead. A colourful, decorated canopy had been raised at the ‘wellhead’, and under it the officials sipped tea made from tap water. Moreover, the price of the water was pasted on, and a strip of paper was hung for display.Footnote 45 The cleanliness and convenience of tap water were not accepted by Old City residents until publicized with the help of local officials and advertised by the water company. The number of people showing up daily at the wellheads gradually increased. ‘Faucets that were some distance from the rivers sold even more water.’Footnote 46
The most convenient aspect of pipe-supplied tap water is that it is supplied directly to users. However, the Old City did not have a network of pipes directly connected to residences as in the settlements. Instead, a communal water supply system developed. As required by contract, Ji'an Water Works installed faucets at fixed intervals along the roads in the Old City. They were used for retail sale of water and were called wellheads. Water consumers first went to a company water ticket booth to purchase ‘water tickets’, which they used to buy water at the wellhead. At the end of the Qing, one yinyuan (silver dollar) could buy 140 tan of water, one tan being equivalent to seven gallons. This direct sales method was unable to cope with the rapid growth in urban population following the founding of the Republic. With improvements in measurement technology, Ji'an Water Works switched to a contracting system. It contracted out the wellheads to merchants, who set up water shops providing both cold and boiled water. Meanwhile, water carriers continued to deliver to private residents. The water shops of the traditional era thus experienced a renaissance. The availability of tap water did not effect major changes in their method of doing business, and pipe-supplied water did not make water carriers or water shops obsolete. On the contrary, the latter combined with the modern tap water company to form an urban water supply network.
The continued existence of water shops and water carriers was closely tied to lifestyles of people of the Old City. Old City homes generally consisted of courtyards surrounded on four (siheyuan) or three (sanheyuan) sides or of large multihousehold compounds. Domestic functions within the internal space of such traditional Chinese residences were not clearly apportioned. Perhaps for reasons of lifestyles and cultural difference, very few residences, even siheyuan occupied by just one rich and influential family, had tap water pipes laid into their courtyards. Even households such as these relied on water carriers for everyday domestic water.Footnote 47
Because they suited the lifestyles of the Old City residents, the water shops increased rapidly in number. By 1929, there were a total of 558 water shops, and their total sales accounted for 78 per cent of total tap water consumption in the Old City.Footnote 48 In 1947, there were a total of 634 water shops, 81 per cent of which were located in the densely populated districts on both sides of the Hai River.Footnote 49 The water shop managers were generally ex-water carriers, who invested the savings they had obtained from years of water delivery into their new businesses. The larger of these operations had water carts and employed water deliverymen. These served large sections of the city. The smaller businesses were scattered throughout the back alleys. ‘They only had one faucet projecting from beneath a window, and some did not even have that. They relied entirely on their neighbours having known them for many years.’Footnote 50 The shops typically contained brick stoves on which three large pots boiled. They would supply boiled water at all times and made daily deliveries of unboiled water to households. The households continued to store water in water jars, as had been the practice in the traditional period. One went to a water shop whenever one needed to purchase boiled water. In contrast to Shanghai's laohuzao (tiger stoves), the Tianjin water shops never formed joint operations with small teashops or simple bath houses, but were more like small shops that sold supplies for domestic use.
The space-monopolizing characteristics of pipe-supplied water also led to a division of business territories among the water shops, with ‘water hegemons’ arising to monopolize certain districts. No one could open a water shop within the territories controlled by these ‘water hegemons’ without their permission. Ji'an Water Works, in the pursuit of their own commercial interests, did not stint at joining the ‘water hegemons’ in upholding their spheres of influence. The company stipulated that no water pipe could be installed or water shop opened within 500 feet of an existing water shop and even imposed restrictions on the installation of tap water faucets by home owners within their own homes.Footnote 51 The company also helped the ‘water hegemons’ squeeze out competitors and thus upheld their monopolies.Footnote 52 The water shops and water carriers became water supply middlemen, with the result that Ji'an Water Works and the municipal government found it difficult to control water quality and price. Some water shops or water carriers mixed river or well water with tap water and then sold it to customers, while others simply raised the price arbitrarily.Footnote 53 In addition to sending personnel to conduct audits, Ji'an also directly announced water prices in the newspapers and instructed customers on how to resist the control of water carriers.Footnote 54 The municipal government, in its efforts to prevent fraud, went so far as inspect the buckets used by water carriers and painted a mark on those that passed inspection.Footnote 55 The government thus revealed its powerlessness. Even a modern company backed by substantial capital had to accept these middlemen, for their methods of supplying water had become tightly integrated with the lives of the common people in the Old City. There was no getting rid of them.
Domestic water and public hygiene
Before the introduction of concepts of hygiene, the people of Tianjin rarely made the connection between domestic water and disease. In accordance with the customs of the time, a water carrier who delivered water to a household typically emptied the household's wastewater containers at the same time, and the contents would typically be dumped into the river. Such conduct was seen as entirely personal, beyond the purview of government. Nor would anyone think that the public environment created by personal actions would affect public health or have any impact on lives. However, in the west, people's concepts of hygiene and health had undergone a fundamental change. Hygiene was no longer related to personal health alone, but had become a public matter closely tied to medical treatment, public health, the public environment, public consciousness and government regulation.Footnote 56 In nineteenth-century London, Paris and New York, the need for health reform was considered the greatest problem facing those cities, and an ‘ample supply of clean water’ was at the heart of policy.Footnote 57
The westerners who came to Tianjin brought such concepts with them. Failure to stress public health and neglect of public hygiene began to draw criticisms and warnings. In the early twentieth century, public hygiene and disease prevention began to fall under the supervision of the Old City government. While the Provisional Government ruled Tianjin, it drafted a series of policies and regulations relating to public health and hygiene. In addition, it began to set up institutions to oversee health matters, hired health inspection officers, supervised public hygiene and penalized those who violated health regulations. In late spring and early summer 1902, a cholera epidemic broke out in Tianjin. A Japanese physician who was researching the causes of cholera in Tianjin at the time reached a conclusion following bacteriological studies. He believed that one of the main causes of the cholera epidemic was the practice of drinking water directly from the Hai River.Footnote 58 Thereupon, the Provisional Government issued a policy that admonished residents ‘to use boiled water whenever drinking water or tea’ and ‘to keep their bodies and fingers clean and free of filth’.Footnote 59 At the same time, it warned water shops not simply to filter the water used in making carbonated water (also called ‘Dutch water’), but to ‘fill the bottles with water after boiling it for twenty minutes’. The shops of violators were closed, and the proprietors themselves received severe penalties: a fine of 500 yinyuan and six months’ hard labour.Footnote 60
Qing government officials also began to accept such ideas as the critical importance of water supply to urban health and disease prevention. In 1902, among the reasons Yuan Shih-kai gave for approving the establishment of Ji'an Water Works were that ‘tap water is hygienic and critical to the government in alleviating disasters’ and that ‘the epidemic this year was half-caused by unclean water. Autumn will be here in no time and with it cloudless skies and dry winds and the need to take preventive measures against disease is particularly urgent.’Footnote 61 The regulations drafted by the subsequently established ‘General Health Bureau of Tianjin’ provided city residents with even more specific instructions on the safe use of domestic water.
Unboiled water [referring here to non-tap water] contains many pestilential bugs. First use alum to clarify the water. Then, after a day and night have passed, heat it for twenty-four minutes until it attains a roiling boil. Only then may it be drunk. Boiled tap water is always ideal for drinking. The majority of all diseases are contracted through unboiled water. Do not make any exceptions . . . After a meal wash plates with boiled water, not unboiled water.Footnote 62
With the founding of the Republic, public health and disease prevention became an even greater responsibility of the government. Every spring and summer brought increased risk of epidemics, and health agencies would issue health and disease prevention-related bans, the majority of which related to water. In March 1920, in the midst of the spring disease prevention period, the Beiyang Disease Prevention Office called upon city residents to use a 20-part carbolic acid disinfecting solution to wash utensils and other dirty objects.Footnote 63 Summer was the cholera season. The Beiyang Disease Prevention Office again reminded city residents that they should drink water only after it had been boiled and that carbonated water, Dutch water, and other cold beverages had to be made from boiled water. The sale of all cold foods, such as ‘ice water, haw jelly, and dried apricot juice mixed with block ice’ was prohibited, without exception.Footnote 64 They also published notices in the newspapers that used common speech to publicize ways in which to prevent cholera:
Never drink unboiled river water. Unboiled water contains very many microbes, and you can very easily get sick if you drink it. All water sellers should clarify their water with alum and then boil it and only then can they sell it. It is best to boil tap water. Absolutely do not drink ice water.Footnote 65
Both ‘microbes’, as mentioned in the text quoted above, and the so-called ‘pestilential bugs’, that were spoken of at the beginning of the twentieth century, were names for pathogenic bacteria. The change in nomenclature reflects the continual introduction of new theories and concepts of science and hygiene and of their acceptance by government and society. However, the residents of the Old City seemed to find it more difficult to change their traditional ways of life. In the 1920s, they were still ‘accustomed to dumping all their sewage into the river’. Government health agencies often had to use the newspapers to remind city residents not to ‘dump sewage near water drawing sites, and do not wash pails at water drawing sites’.Footnote 66 Water carriers also often provided households with wastewater dumping services. This practice did not end until 1928 when the police department made the separation of services mandatory. Water carriers then became exclusively responsible for the delivery of water and switched to water carts, and sanitation workers specialized in wastewater dumping.
After the Nationalist Government was founded in 1928, it intensified supervision over and intervention in water supply matters. It established a new Health Department, which immediately drafted a plan. Every ten days, tap water from a different district would be tested and the laboratory results would be announced in the newspapers. The test standard that it set for drinking water was: ‘One c.c. of water may contain no more than one hundred bacteria and no more than one coliform bacterium. Counts in excess of these limits indicate that the water has been in contact with pathogenic bacteria. Such water should not used for drinking and should be disinfected.’Footnote 67 As a result of government intervention, Ji'an Water Works also began to implement this rule. It conducted bacterial tests every ten days and chemical tests monthly. The Health Department established a series of health codes for water-related trades. Although the health codes drafted in 1929 for theatres, tea houses, and bath houses did not require the use of tap water, they did emphasize ‘the need to use sand-filtered water’ and ‘the need to boil drinking water’.Footnote 68 The ‘Rules governing places of food and beverage preparation’ stipulated that water or milk used in preparing cold foods and beverages ‘always need to be boiled or otherwise appropriately disinfected’.Footnote 69 In 1930, the ‘Rules for the management of hotels’ drafted by the Health Department required that they use tap water in beverages. If this was not possible, and the hotel needed to use river or well water, then it should use a sand-filter tank ‘to filter out insect eggs and other impurities’. All water used ‘to wash melons, fruits, and vegetables or supplied to guests for gargling’ had to be boiled. Eating utensils were to be washed in ‘boiled water’, and used napkins were to be disinfected by boiling.Footnote 70
There is still no evidence to prove that people complied with these government regulations. Some records show that because of the public's incomprehension and even refusal to co-operate, the government's disease prevention measures often fell short and sometimes were implemented in name only.Footnote 71 However, one can also see that hygienic and healthy lifestyles were gradually gaining acceptance by different classes of society. In the 1920s, society was quick to pay attention whenever tap water quality deviated from the normal. A newspaper reported in June 1923 that ‘many have fallen ill recently because of unclean river water’. Ji'an Water Works immediately declared that the canal water, having become turbid due to a diversion upstream, was not potable and that it had already switched to Xi River water. At the same time, the company welcomed city residents to come and tour the water works so as to ‘avoid misunderstandings’.Footnote 72 In June 1928, the city's tap water again exhibited an ‘increase in silt’. Ji'an Water Works explained the cause: ‘The season of yellow wheat recently began. The quality of water in the canal suddenly changed upstream and it became a reddish-yellow, i.e. what is popularly called “yellow wheat water”. It is moreover carrying very large amounts of silt, and the tap water has been affected as a result.’ The company also stated that it had prepared additional purification ponds to purify the water and that ‘conditions would return to normal within three days at the most’.Footnote 73 This not only shows the growing concern over the quality of domestic water, but also reveals the rise in public consciousness among city residents.
Because of the urban environment and lifestyle differences, routine public health concerns and regulatory emphases differed widely between the settlements and the Old City. By the start of the twentieth century, the majority of British Settlement residences had installed tap water and thereby assured themselves a supply of safe drinking water. With the exception of epidemics, the main public health concerns of the settlement public were those matters most closely tied to the lives of residents, such as milk, which was a daily necessity, and laundry. In the annual report published by the Municipal Council, these matters constituted the main part of special reports issued by the public health officer. In 1912, the Municipal Council specially hired additional health inspection officers, one of whose primary duties was to supervise trades that had a bearing on public health.
The British Settlement's milk was supplied from several dairy farms both within and without the settlement and was sold by milk peddlers to households. With the advent of tap water, the Municipal Council began requiring dairy facilities to wash implements and bottles with tap water.Footnote 74 The Public Health Office supervised milk quality through random sampling and unannounced inspections and it strictly prohibited mixing milk with water. The residents of the settlements, particularly the foreign residents, usually sent their everyday clothing to laundries for cleaning. All of the laundries in the British Settlement were operated by Chinese. They continued to wash clothes with river water until the first years of the Republican era, and the Municipal Council was always worrying whether the direct use of river water could pose a threat to public health.Footnote 75 So in 1915, the Municipal Council funded the construction of 20 laundries. In accordance with the requirements of public health officials, the new laundries had cement floors and were equipped with tap water and sewer lines. They were all rented to Chinese laundrymen, who were required to use tap water and accept supervision from the Public Health Office.Footnote 76
As a result of its good public health environment and strict municipal controls, the settlement had public health conditions that were clearly superior to those of the Old City. According to the health statistics reported annually by the British Settlement Municipal Council, both the morbidity rate and the number of fatalities for water environment-related infectious diseases, such as diarrhoea, dysentery and cholera, declined steadily.
Conclusion
Water is generally supplied to modern cities as a public utility. All city residents, whether poor or wealthy, can equally enjoy the use of healthy domestic water. In its early stages, however, tap water generally passed through a commercial phase. In the wake of the municipal reforms that took place in nearly all western cities during the latter half of the nineteenth century, urban water supply gradually evolved into a public service undertaken by the government. The supply of tap water also passed through an early commercial phase in China. This was the case in Shanghai, Tianjin and other commercial port cities where China's first tap water supply systems emerged. In addition, the political partitioning of the cities gave rise to multiple, co-existing water supply systems. In Tianjin, the earliest incarnation was a British Settlement water company that supplied several settlements. In the 1920s, this became a public entity that supplied its own settlement exclusively. In contrast, the Ji'an Water Works in the Old City broke through political boundaries in building a water supply network that covered the settlements of six nations in addition to the Old City. Its facilities were located at a superior site, but even more important was the success of its business operations. The Ji'an Water Works, which was established during the occupation by the Eight-Nation Alliance, relied on the privileges granted to foreign-owned enterprises to form a monopolistic water supply system that crossed into multiple districts. It was not until 1950 that the two main systems were finally merged into one truly non-commercial public utility that supplied water to the entire city.
Only a few years separated the appearance of tap water in the Tianjin settlements and in the Old City. However, tap water supply affected the two urban zones differently. By the 1920s and 1930s, the British, French, Italian and other settlements had become modern urban districts, with distinctive European architectural styles, meticulously planned blocks, advanced living facilities and safe public environments. They provided good environments in which their residents could enjoy modern living. The construction of water supply systems and other modern infrastructure laid the foundation on which all of this could be realized. Part of the reason for this was the different institutional systems that existed in the foreign settlements and the Old City.
In the British Settlement, for example, an autonomous municipal system was instituted, wherein the General Meeting of Electors constituted the organ of supreme power. All settlement residents who owned real estate or paid a certain amount of taxes had the right to attend the General Meeting of Electors and vote on the public affairs of the settlement. The board of directors, whose members were elected by the General Meeting of Electors, carried out everyday municipal management of the settlement. All board members were either representatives of foreign firms or individuals who possessed substantial economic clout and high social standing and reputations in addition to an enthusiasm for public affairs. Such a system ensured that the settlement would develop and that the management of its public affairs would embody the wills of taxpayers rather than be manipulated by a small number of officials or oligarchs. So all the decisions on water supply were made by the General Meeting of Electors. After the Municipal Council took over the water company, it reduced water supply coverage to within the limits of the British Settlement and gradually increased investments in the system, transforming it into a technologically advanced water supply system capable of meeting the development needs of the settlement.
The Old City municipal authorities, whether under the late Qing, the Beiyang or Nationalist governments, also established public health agencies. However, although the city governments gradually deepened their involvement and interventions in public affairs, they were never able to make the Old City into a safe, hygienic and orderly district in the manner of the settlements. In their efforts to manage the city water supply, the Old City governments often proved powerless before the privileges of foreign-owned enterprises. It was not until 1936 that Ji'an Water Works was forced to reorganize as a primarily Chinese-owned joint venture. From the late Qing until the early Republican period, the police department was most capable of intervening in water supply matters, and it was primarily concerned with supplying water for fire fighting and street hygiene. After the Nationalist Government was established in 1928, the new public health bureau strengthened safety controls over water supply and domestic water. However, because the government failed to take effective action with regard to citywide planned development, the city's water supply was largely assured through interactions between a commercial company and society. In this way, just as with prostitution in Suzhou, it was the interaction between commercial and political institutions that formed the context for water management in the Old City. However, often the Chinese government was unable to implement policy effectively. Virtually every new government established institutions to manage public health and other public matters and enacted an ever greater number of regulations. However, when it came to specific execution, the newly enacted laws often proved a dead letter or fell far short of their stated goals. The degeneration of the governments into hidebound bureaucracies continually diminished their municipal administrative capabilities.
The process, which started in the late Qing and ended in the Republican era, whereby tap water was gradually accepted by the Old City, was also the process of the gradual introduction of concepts of science and hygiene and of healthy modern lifestyles. Such a process was tortuous and complex, and different social classes varied widely in their acceptance of new things and new lifestyles. The educated class discussed the relationship between drinking water and diseases transmitted by bacterial microbes, but city residents continued to dump sewage and garbage into the rivers without the slightest scruple. On the one hand, accepting modern ideas of living and hygiene, residents paid attention both to the safety of drinking water and to the public health environment. On the other, keeping their old habits and clinging to the ways of their ancestors, they were reluctant to affirm health concepts and saw little value in public ethics and public consciousness. Obviously, changes in lifestyles and the ideas by which people structure their lives do not come quickly.
