You wrung me out
Too, too, too many times
Now hang me up to dry
I'm pearly like the white
Wh-whites of your eyes
-Cold War Kids
I write this
for my mother…who has a strange fascination with laundry. My dirty laundry, yes,
you will know all my secrets.
In my former
American life, laundry meant throwing the clothes in the washer along with some
laundry detergent, pressing a few buttons, closing the laundry room door, and
ignoring the washer for an hour or so. Once the wash cycle completed,
mindlessly throwing the wet load into the dryer, twisting a knob and pressing a
button, waiting another hour and voila! Lint-free clothes that smell like Tide
detergent. Then plopping on the couch and watching “What Not to Wear” while
mindlessly folding clothes. Easy peasy. And the clothes smell so nice. Thank
you dryer, I love you.
And now
dryer, I miss you.
Personal
home clothes dryers are rare in China, limited to the Chinese upper-class and
professional laundry services. Drying laundry adorns window panes and street
corners. Jeans, sweaters, socks, underwear, amongst other personal items are on
display for everyone to see. We foreigners are no exception. Just like everyone
else, we hang our wet laundry out to dry. My running pants, birdMAN’s white T-shirts,
and our underwear along with a mix of other garments suspended from the balcony
ceiling rods are like our furniture: always there. Sometimes I forget to hide
my unmentionables before people come over. But whatever, everyone is used to
seeing other people’s underwear.
Doing
laundry now still involves throwing a load into the washer, but a cold wash is
the only temperature option. And all the buttons are written in Chinese. The
washer is on our patio and drains into a drain pipe. This drain pipe empties adjacent
to the walkway outside. I wonder how the detergent laden waste water ultimately
affects Beijing water sources.
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| Laundry water drain pipe. So what? I am interested in pipes-- especially drain pipes |
Back to
laundry. I press a few buttons and let the washer do its thing. The sound of
the washer knocking around sounds like a rocket getting ready to go off to
space. After about an hour and half when the cycle completes, the washer beeps.
Then I take out each piece of clothing, shake off the lint and hang it up to
dry in the lovely Beijing air.
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| What? Is there hot cycle option? |
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| This is a popular hang out spot |
A dryer
would be working overtime battling the dust and lint here. Beijing dust is not
like any dust I have ever encountered. The dust invades every crook, cranny,
and surface, creating an oily black film sticky to the touch. This same dust
accumulates on the towels, bed sheets, and clothing. After washing, the laundry
is dotted with little black flakes. Some of these flakes may also be scum
accumulation in the washer itself. I read that washers should be cleaned out
every three months, which I have never done. So for now, I shake out the wet
laundry and sigh as I watch the black flakes float to the floor. Then I vacuum it
up.
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| One day I really really scrubbed my kitchen counter with the magic eraser sponge. Ugghhh. Look what BJ dust did! |
Clothes take
a real beating here. First, my clothes get washed a lot. I have fewer clothes
now than I did in the US, so I wear the same clothes two, three or four times a
week. During the day, I am not in an office or an air-conditioned car. Instead,
I am riding around on my bike or sitting in unconditioned places. That means a
lot of sweat—especially in the summer. After one wearing, those sweaty clothes go
straight to the laundry pile. Second, the clothes get washed in Beijing’s hard tap
water. I am pretty sure that is why all my whites are a yellowish hue, and
colored ones have a dullish tint.
So that’s
the laundry blog. Happy, Mom?
English translation: to wash clothes, laundry
Example sentence: 把洗衣挂在阳台上晒 Bǎ xǐyī guà zài yángtái shàng shài
English translation: Hang the laundry on the balcony to dry.
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| Who needs Downy? Sausage fragrance will do just fine! |
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| Just hanging around |
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| The hair salon washes its own towels |
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| Glad I don't have to hand wash clothes in a mucky river |
