I wonder if people in China have thermostats

[Omi_no_Kami]

@Sublight

Ooh, a yukadanbou, even if the modern ones are electric, I love them! It was available as an option on our condo but we decided (with reluctance on my part) not to get one. I swear those things count as narcotics; the first time I encountered one during the winter, I’d sit down on the floor and just pass out for the rest of the day, that’s how good they felt.

I always viewed them with a bit of suspicion: I actually heard about them for the first time when a friend told me a story about a Korean prince who was assassinated as a child when his opponents locked him in a small room equipped with a yukadanbou and essentially roasted him alive.

So I’ll stick with a kotatsu any day.

[interface2x]

@Sleel

interface2x, she’s a city girl. People who live in big cities in any country don’t realize how a significant part of the rural population lives. My wife didn’t believe some of the stuff I told her until she moved here to live with me. And like I said, I’m not even really country here. This is semi-urban by US standards.

She grew up in a smaller city (she said about a two or three hour drive from Beijing), though, only moving to Beijing around high school age. I can’t remember the name of the town, I’ll have to ask her.

[Wendell_Wagner]

I grew up in a house without central heating or air conditioning. This was in Ohio. The house still doesn’t have either one, and my brother still lives there. So it gets hot during the summer? Big deal. You turn on the fan or you just live with it. There’s an oil heater in one room downstairs and a wood-burning one in another room. It gets a little cold sometimes, but again you learn to live with it. I was probably in college before I needed to work a thermostat.

[Kuboydal]

The last house I rented in Georgia had gas furnace that was mysteriously never turned on. We became quite good about not leaving dishes in the sink after the sink froze, full of water and dishes, and made the morning coffee preparations quite difficult. Of course, a 5 bedroom house in town with a yard for $750, I was prepared for a few eccentricities.

[WhyNot]

@GilaB

I’ve lived in various apartment buildings in New York City since moving out of my parents’ house, and haven’t had a thermostat yet. My current apartment has these little knobs behind doors in the radiator covers that we can use to change the amount of steam flowing through when the heat is on, but when it isn’t, (late at night, for example) I have no way of increasing the heat. Don’t assume that everybody has a thermostat!

I don’t have a thermostat OR adjustable radiators! The radiators are all on or all off. As I understand it, there’s a thermostat in my neighbor’s unit, to my left, and it controls the on-ness or off-ness of the whole building’s heat. This works about as well as you’d expect. Right now I have a sweater, sweatshirt with a hood, sweatpants and a blanket wrapped around my legs, and I’m almost warm enough. But when I’m making dinner later, it will be so warm in here I’ll have to crack a window open.

Ah, well. At least we got new windows installed this summer. Last winter, snow would blow through the cracks in the window frames. :rolleyes:
(Generally speaking, I love my apartment. It’s just the heat that’s a problem. Well, and the nightingale floors. And the paint’s starting to peel 'cause my landlord doesn’t know how to pre-treat walls for painting. But other than that, it’s the perfect place!)