Memory from moving into apartment in China

 

Memory from moving into our apartment in China.

Ann Morrison Marklund

AtugSuselortiponfls 3m0to, muogrre2017hdgn  · 

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So today is the washing machine saga. When we washed clothes yesterday with our tiny front loading washing machine located in my teeny tiny kitchen, we found that the clothes were really hot when we took them out. In other words, the clothes are being washed in hot water.

The first thing I did was try to decipher the picture of the machine on the wall of the kitchen. Part of it is in English, words like "cold", "rinse", but it still does not make sense. So I wechatted (Chinese social media) to the previous resident of the apartment in Vancouver, BC. I asked her how she got cold into her washing machine. She wrote that the diagram was on the wall of the kitchen. That did not help.

So while I was wondering what the next step was, the maids came to the apartment door to ask if they could clean now. (Rick was back in bed at 9 a.m. right then. He slept about 20 hours yesterday, but was already back in bed. Hopefully, he is about done with jet lag now. ...I am not.) I told the maids to come on it, and that I would just roust Rick out. They laughed.

I asked the maids if they knew how to get cold water into the washing machine. They said that of course it was only cold. I said, "No." They said, "Yes." I put in a load, and they felt the pipe, and said, "Yes, it is hot." So then ensued two different workmen who came in and pulled out the machine and pried open the wall and talked and gestured and leeched the line, etc.

Finally, they said that there had been a mistake made when it had been hooked up, and only hot water was available. Then progressed the conversation about how they would pull out the pipe and put in a new one that was for the cold water. At this point, I said, "Wow. That sounds like a lot of work. I will just use hot water. " It has taken a few more workmen and phone calls, Chinese and English and Chinese to let them know that it really is not that important to me and they can just leave it alone. I think we are settled now