...."Electric Dish Dryers: Laziness in Taiwan’s kitchens
Eating out in Taiwan by yourself is for the most part cheaper then anything you could cook up at home. Meat is expensive and a lot of the time you’re lucky to even have a kitchen.
It’s only when you want to feed a large group of people, such as a family, that the cost of eating in becomes comparable to eating out.
I was recently at one such family dinner and following the mountain of a banquet the rare opportunity arose to participate in some dish washing. Needless to say when a family sits down to eat a ton of food the dish count is quite high and takes a while.
After we’d finished washing up, one of the family members began to start stacking the dishes in what looked like a wine chiller.
‘Oh cmon, surely you guys aren’t that desperate for chilled bowls and plates?!’
Turns out it wasn’t a wine chiller but rather an electric dish dryer.
I’m not entirely sure but I believe the blue light is also a sterilizer, but I had trouble explaining that concept in broken English/Chinese so I can’t say for certain.
Regardless an electric dish dryer migth be ok if you live in Antartica, or Iceland, or Alaska… when it comes to Taiwan however we’re talking average temperatures of 28 degrees C in summer and 18 degrees C in winter (it varies a bit north to south but it’s anything but cold).
I don’t sweat much as it is but in the heat of summer if I stray too far away from a fan it’s not long before the waterworks turn on and I’m reaching for a bubble tea or slurpee.
Yet somehow in this climate someone has not only managed to make available an electric dish dryer but also convinced people that they need one.
Worse still people are actually buying them!
I mean why wait for nature to dry your dishes when you can just nuke them. Working 85 hours a day, cleaning your house 8 times a week, washing your clothes in the bathtub every night, putting electrical appliances that are used daily back in their box after every use… all that’s fine, but don’t expect us to waste time drying dishes.
Psh, that’s crazy talk.
August 16th, 2010 at 9:46 pm Erica(Quote)
this is hilarious! is that true thou?
August 17th, 2010 at 12:34 am Caffeinated SentryGnome(Quote)
isnt it more effort to put them in there than just use hot water that the plates dry in like <5mins after taking them out :S
August 17th, 2010 at 1:29 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
@Erica
Pretty much. The work ethic here is nuts.
My boss is pregnant and still opens the school at 7:30am in the morning till 10pm at night 5 days a week. I know a guy in real estate who starts work at 7am and finishes around 9pm. Then he starts his other job, internet research on the market property till around 2am. He does this 5 days a week.
People love to work in Taiwan it’s a bit nuts.
@Sentry Gnome
Yeah you’d think. Far be it from me to intervene the thousand year old tradition of using electric dish dryers ‘just because’ though.
August 17th, 2010 at 11:33 am yi(Quote)
i’ve seen a few Korean restaurants in melbourne that uses them as well. i think it’s more for the purpose of sterilizing them.
August 17th, 2010 at 1:20 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
I can understand industrial sized ones for resterants but it’s a bit overkill for the family kitchen though isn’t it?
Just how suspicious of your family’s health do you need to be to warrant steralizing the family cutlery?
September 6th, 2010 at 2:44 am Tony(Quote)
seen ‘em in china