I paid and studied the complex's map. Encompassing 24,000 square meters, the Living Water Garden was designed to resemble the profile of a fish, with the Fu River forming its spine and its eye facing west. Stairs rose to the settling pond, the centerpiece of which is a fountain stone carved to depict a magnified water droplet, teeming with microscopic life. Water from the Fu River is pumped into the fountain, where it sets off, naturally, down the incline into a series of seven stages, ranging from an anaerobic settling pond to other pools containing native plants. When we send water through straight pipes, they are contrary to the notion of water.
Chemicals can bind more easily to water then.
After making its journey through the system, the formerly polluted liquid rests at the end of the park as safe, living water. That water could, or should, be alive was still an alien concept to me. My culture raised me to understand water as water. It was something you drank and boiled, something in which you bathed or played. It has its own chemical reactions.