At first glance, it might seem like just a black truck filled with bottles of water, but a closer look reveals a darker — or rather murkier — side to what is sloshing around inside.
Its cargo of more than 500 bottles of Nongfu Spring, an ubiquitous Chinese brand, filled with contaminated drinking water from the village of Xiaohaotu in China’s northwestern Shaanxi Province is being driven around Beijing as a reminder of the costs of the country’s rapid economic development.
The mobile exhibition, created by Nut Brother (堅果兄弟) — an artist known for advocacy work on environmental and social issues — was created in defiance after his initial show was shut down.
Shocked by Shaanxi’s dirty drinking water during a work trip to the province in May, the 37-year-old enlisted the help of villagers to fill 9,000 empty Nongfu bottles and transported them to Beijing, where they were installed in a museum.
Nut Brother’s exhibition caught the attention of Nongfu Spring Co, and two weeks later authorities from the Beijing Industrial and Commercial Bureau dismantled his display, removing most of the bottled water.
The company later filed a complaint, claiming his work infringed on its copyright.
“Nongfu Spring literally means ‘farmer’s spring water,’ using village farmers as a brand,” said Nut Brother, who does not reveal his name to the media. “But the reality is farmers don’t drink this water. A lot of their water is seriously tainted with pollution.”
Nongfu Spring Co’s legal department refused interview requests and calls to their public relations team went unanswered.
Large parts of China are blanketed in toxic smog and suffer from polluted waterways as a result of the country’s economic boom.
While much attention has been paid to the impact of rapid industrialization on China’s air, the effects on the country’s water supply are less well-known — and less visible.
Across China, much of the water is “unfit for human contact,” and 14 of 31 provinces failed to meet water quality targets, despite a nationwide push for improvement in previous years, a Greenpeace East Asia report said last year.
“They’ve been drinking this water for more than 10 years,” Nut Brother said.
The samples contain high levels of iron and manganese, which can be toxic in large doses, he said.
“It’s not fit for consumption, but the villagers have no choice,” he added.
The roving exhibit seems to have startled some visitors.
“It’s shocking to know we have people who drink this kind of water,” one onlooker said.
Another passerby bravely took a swig from a bottle.
“You can definitely feel bits of the dirt,” he said. “It makes me feel very lucky to be able to drink clean water. Very lucky.”
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to