China vs USA: Ice Water

(This is Part 1 of my review of food in China.  This post will be about ordering ice water in restaurants.)

If you go to a restaurant in the U.S. and ask for water, there will be no questions asked and you will get your water after a short while.  Not in China.  The first night, me and my parents went to a restaurant to eat dinner.  The waitress asked us what we wanted to drink.  We replied, "Water, Ice water."

Five minutes later, she came back with a pot of boiling water.  We told her that we wanted ice water, cold water, not hot water.  Another 5 minutes later, she comes back with 3 glasses of ice water.  "That will be 9 RMB each" she told us. (9 RMB is equivalent to around $1.33 USD) "Wait, what?" I thought to myself. "It costs money for ice water?"  That's just ridiculous.  In the U.S, water is free, but in China, it costs money.  It's amazing how a commodity like ice water in the U.S. is a scarcity in a country like China.

Thankfully, it was 9 RMB per person for water, not per glass.  I ended up drinking 4 glasses during our dinner.  9 RMB for water is not expensive, but it's 9 RMB more than it should be.