Laundry Time

In China, doing laundry is a little different than in most parts of America. First, you have to connect the water hose to the washer. Then you should connect the drain hose to where you want to drain it-either the toilet, sink or floor drain. Then throw the clothes in and hit go. Then if you want, you can watch the water drain and see either how dirty your clothes were or that you should have rinsed out your new blue shirt before putting it in the washer today (like me today). The last cycle on the washer is like a spin cycle where it gets a lot of the extra water out-a necessity in China. Since China doesn't really use dryers, you then get all the clothes out and hang them up on the balcony, bathroom and in the bedrooms and wait a day or so for them to dry. So that is the normal washing experience.

Today, I did not have the normal experience. My washer lately has been having some issues. It likes to stop in the middle of cycles and just stop and i have to move clothes around and then let it go again until I hear it stopped again. It has never really done the spin cycle well and so all of my clothes have been dripping wet when I take them out which means they take a while to dry. Today, I go through the usual motions of moving clothes around, but then I can't seem to get the water to drain. I try restarting the washer a few times but nothing happens-it just sits there. Finally I call my neighbor up and ask her and we try some things-it will wash but just not drain or spin cycle. Finally, we decide it is broken and I take the clothes down to her place to rinse and spin cycle. I still have a washer full of blue water though. I'll call the landlady tomorrow. Maybe she can do something about it.

<--Notice water still in washer















Clothes drying on the balcony-->