Posted on 10/08/2005 7:14:39 AM PDT by aculeus
A couple of months ago, in the privacy of his Reston townhouse, Alan Chien made a final break from cultural tradition, a guilt-filled decision he has yet to share with his parents.
He used his dishwasher. He knows his parents will not understand. "They don't believe in it," said Chien, 35, an engineer who emigrated with his family from Taiwan when he was a toddler. "Just because they never used it, I never used it, so it was just a mysterious thing to me."
In many immigrant homes, the automatic dishwasher is the last frontier. Long after new arrivals pick up football, learn the intricacies of the multiplex and the DMV and develop a taste for pizza, they resist the dishwasher. Some joke that not using the appliance is one of the truest signs of immigrant heritage, whether they hail from Africa, Latin America, Asia or Eastern Europe.
If they have a dishwasher -- and many do, because it is standard equipment in most homes -- it becomes a glorified dish rack, a Tupperware storage cabinet or a snack-food bin. It's never turned on.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Probably a lot like the shower
LOL!
Not only do I not have a dishwasher, I don't even have a garbage disposal. That's what dogs are for. :)
"Hey Fido, lick this plate off for me, will ya?"
I have a girlfriend who came from Israel (legally - she is now a citizen). When she first came here, and didnt't yet speak English, she tried to show her appreciation by doing the housework for the family that took her in.
We always felt bad - we would still be eating, and she would be in the; kitchen washing dishes by hand. We tried several times to get her to use the dishwasher but she wouldn't consider it. After she got a better command of English she told me that she just didn't think something mechanical could get anything clean enough.
It probably took her two years to break down and use a dishwasher. She laughs at it with me now, and said it's the greatest invention in the world - how could she have resisted using it?
"Not only do I not have a dishwasher, I don't even have a garbage disposal. That's what dogs are for. :)"
We didn't get air conditioning until I was nine and NEVER had a dishwasher or disposal. The dishwasher was me. You can live without those things.
And a flush toilet
Anyway, it's nice that immigrants have all this spare time to stand in front of the sink. But if I'm going to spend time with my family I don't want to spend it washing dishes. There are a million more interesting things to do.
Ha. This article is hilarious, and it would take a reporter such as Phuong Ly (a Vietnamese name) to write it.
My wife is Vietnamese, a U.S. citizen, here for seven years, and still has never, ever, not once, used the dishwasher.
She thinks it's great when I use it, but other than that it's a complete cipher. She won't load it or unload it on her own volition under any circumstances. I don't think she's ever opened the dishwasher door.
I could put a million dollars in there and my wife would never see it.
In defense of handwashing, the human race has progressed quite admirably without dishwashing machines right up to the 1970's when they first became generally available to homeowners.
It's even a smaller percentage that know how to use their credit card in a store, or that it's ok to use cash for purchases less than $3.00.
IIRC they only use the right hand to eat food, because the left hand is considered "unclean".
*snurgle*
Or a crib for the babies of all the families that live in the home.
At an overseas Tamil restaurant once, all the Tamils were on the left side eating with their hands, and all the expat foreigners were on the right side eating with utensils.
Both sides were constantly sneaking curious looks at each other.
It was funny.
I dont care if the water is 240 degrees the dishes get much cleaner by hand because of the ability of detergents as surfactants with the water. I won't eat off anyone's plates unless they have been washed with somthing other than hot water.. and no, sprinkling detergent in the bottom doesnt work. Gag! Anyone even familiar with the cleansing properties of water knows that for the same reason a dragonfly can walk on the lake, water alone, even hot water, won't clean anything.
Just gross. And please don't put dirty dishes in clean water, it makes the water dirty.
Dip your sponge in the clean hot detergent water, then clean the dishes in the empty sink. When they are clean, put them in the soapy water until you can rinse.
People gross me out with their dishes. I always look and would rather use paper plates at most homes.
First try was with washing machine detergent and promptly filled the kitchen with foam.
The great futurist Robert Heinlein loved the job of dishwasher. He opined that they were always needed, even in the most desperate of times.
Not only is there always a demand, but the demand is everywhere. If you have the itch to travel and see the world, dishwashing is the ticket.
For more detail and a great read, see his novel JOBE.
True. But old graveyards are full of people who died of infectious diseases, and one of the reasons our life expectancy is higher today is that our lives are just cleaner than they were a hundred years ago, so not everything we did in the past was better than what we have today. I'll bet people can get respiratory and intestinal illnesses from bacteria left on dishes.
My wife would kill me if she knew I was posting this, but that's what she did on her "learning curve" with washing machines: a floor entirely covered with soap foam.
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