> Granted the last time I was there was about eight years ago, but taking a bus from Taicang to Kunshan for instance, on the Eastern coast just out of Shanghai,

> Granted the last time I was there was about eight years ago, but taking a bus from Taicang to Kunshan for instance, on the Eastern coast just out of Shanghai, I rode through villages that didn't even have electricity. Speaking as someone who’s travelled extensively in the region, I’d say you might have been there 28 years ago, not eight. I heard there are still extremely poor villages without electricity scattered in godforsaken places (e.g. deep in mountains), but those tend to be hard to get to in the first place, there’s no way you can simply stroll through one on the way from one city to another. > even in the cities, is it safe to drink the water yet or use ice cubes? Or are we still having a refreshing cup of boiling hot tea at lunchtime on muggy 35 degree summer days? Is there toilet paper in the public restrooms yet in the tourist districts in Nanjing? Please let me know if things have changed so I can update my image of China that's informed by direct first hand experiences. People don’t drink tap water afaik. The population in general don’t like cold/icy water anyway, so I was told. I’ve met many people who drink hot/warm water/tea from an insulated water bottle all day, even in the summer. The majority of “water fountains” (for lack of a better word) seem to only serve hot or warm, although there’s no technical reason they can’t serve cold, so I attribute it more to cultural differences. Anyway, I never had problems getting cold drinks myself. Toilet paper: a (small?) fraction do, you need to bring your own or purchase outside for most. I heard there are initiatives to roll out free toilet paper to more public restrooms. Anyway, drinking directly from tap or having free toilet paper in public restrooms don’t seem to be necessities, so those don’t contradict gp ether way, while your 1200 BCE claims sound highly dubious to me (I bet I have both longer and more recent experiences than you do, and I’ve travelled to every place you mentioned minus the no-electrcity villages).