I press a button as usual. The machine beeps. It fills with icy water and gives a few hopeful swirls. Then, insolently, it stops. It beeps. And beeps. Insistently. Angrily. Like page from an ex-boyfriend. Beep-bop-beep-bop-beep-bop.
I had an idea. I’d been studying hanzi, so I figured I might finally be able to figure out what the buttons mean. But no. It’s no use. What the hell does the “beautiful wash” setting mean? Where the hell is “spin cycle?”
Meanwhile, beep-bop-beep-bop-beep-bop.
I’m mashing buttons. I’m talking to the damn thing. I figured out how to empty the water, so I empty and refill it. And try it again. I unplug. I remove half the clothes. Lights are blinking and glowing and extinguishing. I plunge my hands in and out of the icy water and it’s freaking freezing. My clothes are getting wet. My house is pretty much unheated. I’ll never get warm. It’s on. It’s off. It’s empty, it’s full. Still, all I can get is " twirl, twirl, beep-bop-beep-bop-beep- bop."
I gotta get these clothes done. It’s the dead of winter, I’m traveling in a few days, and I have no dryer.
Uggggggghhhhh! Stupid impossible language! I know I should be thankful to have a washing machine at all, but frankly I’d rather be in my yard in Cameroon with my three buckets than in this freezing cold with this beeping machine that hates me.
Heh. Laundry finished so I put it under the ceiling fan to dry. So I have a fan, a laptop, and a mini fridge running. I tried to plug in my electric blanket and there was a shower of sparks and the electricity went off. Whatever lazy cheap ass lame-o wired this place put my entire apartment on one circuit. The circuit breakers don’t look tripped and I’m terrified to touch them, so it’s gonna be until tomorrow that this gets fixed.
And, as always, it’s freezing cold. Gonna be a long night without my warm sheets and hot water bottle.
Toughest job you’ll ever love indeed. Thank god I’ve got a vacation in a few days.
I didn’t know we (the U.S.) had Marines in China. (Am I mixing my mottos?)
Seriously, though, if China can own the U.S. economy by way of cheap labor, there’s probably someone nearby who’ll do your laundry for a good price, until you can figure out how the damn machine works (or get someone to teach you).
We’re not talking every day here. Presumably it’s just until even sven can figure out the washer controls. And if it’s anything like other developing countries I’ve lived in, hiring someone to do one load of wash isn’t going to break the bank even if you’re low paid by US standards.
In Cameroon I had legions of household help. I thought of it as my own contribution to the village economy (keeping house there was like camping, and you needed help if you were actually trying to hold down a job.) Here, not so much. I’m sure I could find someone but I can barely talk to people. Most of my friends are students who can only do so much to help me arrange these things.
The maddening thing is that I’ve used the machine for six months without incident. I mean, there are only so many things a washing machine does, and they all boil down to “wash clothes.” So mashing buttons has been fine. I have no idea why it’s suddenly freaking out.
Anyway, clothes got washed. Now I’ve just got to hand in my grades and it’s off for vacation in beautiful Yunnan province. Yay!
A few years ago on Christmas Eve, everyone in my sister’s house went to church. Everyone except me and dad. Since dad is not much of a cook, I was put in charge of preparing the traditional holiday frozen lasagnas. No problem, right? stick them in the oven and turn up the heat.
Well, somehow, I set the oven to beeping. It was loud and obnoxious, and went on for hours. Neither I (a computer programmer) nor my father (an electrical engineer) could figure out how to make the damned beeping stop.
When my sister finally arrived home, she was able to make it stop with the simple push of a button.
I’m glad this thread got bumped, because I want to share a rather un-pit like triumph. I’ve been trying to learn some Hanzi, mostly because I made a stupid bet with someone. It’s not easy, but it’s actually been a lot of fun. It’s kind of like the whole world around me a quiz show, and I get to practice just by walking around. So far I know maybe 200 characters, which is next to nothing in practical terms. But hopefully in a couple years I’ll be able to read whole shop signs.
Anyway, the other day I bought a train ticket. Buying the ticket was the usual linguistic trial so of course I didn’t catch 80% of what was being said to me. I just kind of repeated “I buy one ticket” over and over again until someone handed me one. So, I didn’t know if I ended up in the roomy bottom bunk, the crowded middle one, or the impossibly high one.
I looked despondently at the meaningless glyphs on my ticket, But something was wrong. It was kind of like when Harry Potter finds the diary in Sorcerer’s Stone. All of the stuff printed was not what I expected. It’s like it had re-arranged itself into something with meaning. I saw, in all it’s glory, the symbol for “Top.” I had a top bunk!
It was the first time the stuff I’ve been studying has had meaning in my life. It’s a tiny, tiny baby step for sure. But man, that moment felt like it must have when they realized what the Rosetta Stone actually was.
