ABSTRACT
Customers gather round the stall sipping these water-ices flavoured with "driving-a wayheat ingredients ,"-dried orange-peel, magnoliarind, cardamon and hibiscus,-from cracked glasses, and stirring them with spoons no thicker than tin foil. In bygone days, when the Emperor watched over his people with fatherly solicitude, jars of cool water for free distribution were placed near police stations with the inscription: "The Imperial mercy is all-embracing." Rich and charitable folk continued the custom for a while, but their generosity was sometimes ill repaid, if we may believe the cynical saying: "Some give the ice water, others steal the drinking spoons." In South China it is still a meritorious act to
The DragonBoat Festival
provide hot tea in big kettles for passers-by, as many southerners consider unboiled water dangerous to drink.