Hanging Out in Hong Kong

Hong Kong loves its gadgets. Electronic stores seem to be on every-other corner. Cells phones and I-pods players are everywhere. Despite its modernity though, there are three conspicuous absences in Hong Kong.

Dishwashers are a rarity. I’m sure somewhere, somebody in HK has a dishwasher, I just don’t know of anybody who has one.

While more common than dishwashers, clothes dryers are also fairly unusual. Most Hong Kong residents use a modern washing machine and then either hang their clothes in their apartment or hang them out of the window to dry. I don’t know how their clothes ever get dry hanging outside when it's perpetually 90° with 80% humidity. But apparently they make it work.

Our family is in the minority in that we have a washer and a dryer. Well, sort of. We live on the seventh floor of the school along with all the other first-year teachers and their families. We have a shared laundry facility on our floor with three (small) washing machines and three (small) dryers.

Finally, very few Hong Kong houses have ovens. The Chinese typically cook on a stove top (think: wok). When an apartment does have an oven, it is not uncommon for it to go unused.

Because the building we live in is zoned as a school, HK regulation did not allow ICS to install ovens in our apartments. Instead, our kitchen is equipped with a large, portable, two-burner cooking surface and a microwave of sorts. It’s actually, a microwave, convection oven, and steamer all in one. It has a whole lot of buttons and knobs.

Naturally, the girls have it all figured out.

I, on the other hand, am a little slow on the uptake.

-Jack

Q: What do you do when your dishwasher stops working?

A: Tell her to get back to work.

(For sure, I'm on the sofa tonight)