Convenient and Tasty:
Although soft drinks have enthusiasts in every age group, they find their widest acceptance among teenagers and children. Huang Song-yuan, the chairman of National Taiwan Normal University's Health Education Department, says that drinking and eating habits are among the most difficult to break. The older generation is used to drinking boiled water or tea, and so their drinking pleasures are naturally quite different from today's youngsters, who are growing up in age where drinking soft drinks is more convenient than boiling water.
At home just open up the fridge for a cold drink. Outside, every three steps and there's a convenience store, every five a vending machine, offering beverages whenever you get the urge. And it's no different at school. If perchance there is a water fountain, it may be out of order, but the drinks in the school store and corner vending machine are just waiting for you to study up a thirst.
According to statistics of the Department of Public Health of Taipei City, among the 291 schools in Taipei City, there are 123 schools with centrally provided drinking water (including both those where students go to the tea room to draw water and those where the water is piped out), 190 with drinking water machines installed, 14 with drinkable tap water and 16 that simply don't provide any drinking water.
Whether for sanitation, safety or convenience, few of these schools seem to make the grade. Huang Song-yuan, who is also president of the School Health Association of the R.O.C., says students going to the tea room to carry kettles of boiling water raises concerns about safety, whereas drinking water machines are not easy to maintain. "The filter should be cleaned once a week and changed every half year," he says. "How many schools can do this?" He isn't optimistic. Used improperly, these drinking water machines clog up and break down.
In years past, many people brought canteens to school, but the number of students doing the same is growing ever smaller. "If you don't even prepare a lunch box for the kids," Huang says in exasperation, "fat chance you'll provide them with drinking water." In such circumstances, buying soft drinks becomes the "best" or "only" choice.
Of course, the poor quality of drinking water has encouraged people to spend money on soft drinks. But those consumers who fork out to allay their fears may not realize that these beverages have the same source of water. Cheng Chu-ching points out that in the process of making these beverages there is only limited treatment of the water. To put it another way, the water quality of these drinks isn't necessarily any better than of tap water.
Students carrying kettles are an ever rarer sight to behold.