Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Does Everyone In Anime Use Clotheslines?
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FinaZT
Posts: 1 |
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I only know one person in Japan who owns a dryer.
I think it's because she is old and lives alone. Maybe hanging the clothes is hard for her. We always hang our clothes to dry outside on the laundry pole or inside. Most apartments have a device that hangs from the ceiling. The laundry pole can be moved from outside to inside, so you can hang your clothes here on rainy days or in winter. Something which was not mentioned in the original article (I think): Laundry machines have a connection and hose which can be extended to the bathtub. Water leftover in the bathtub can be pumped into the washing machine. It is then used to the clothes. Keep in mind, many people will wash their body before getting into the bathtub. And, we do not wash our hair or bodies inside the bathtub. Instead, in the area next to the bathtub. But many western-style hotels do not have bathrooms where you can do this. But most homes or apartments do. Therefore, water in the bathtub is clean. Keep in mind, an entire family will use the same water in the bathtub. We don't remove and refill the water each time someone gets out. Bathtubs are really amazing. These days, it is standard to have a digital remote control system to control the temperature of the bath water and begin filling the bath, even from your kitchen (or wherever your remote control system is). (Almost every home these days has it and it is automatically included in every bath unit. Visiting housing showrooms, I have never seen a bath without it.) Baths have many electronic features these days. The line "A bath is like a washing machine for your life" (paraphrased) 「お風呂は命の洗濯よ」from Evangelion describes people's perception of the importance of bathing. |
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mbanu
 Posts: 159 |
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That's not quite fair. I think what happened here is two things: From a practical perspective, I think a lot of people are anxious about their clothes being attacked by mold if they are left to dry on anything but a cloudless sunny day. While this isn't necessarily so, I can understand where this concern comes from, especially if you are in a part of America where it is damp most of the year, especially if there is no place in their house or apartment that is particularly well suited for drying clothes indoors due to lack of airflow, wall-to-wall carpeting, etc. Also, advertising companies in the U.S. partnered with film and TV companies to change cultural norms -- often in modern entertainment, the only time you see clotheslines is when the plot focuses on poor people. Either stringing clothes lines from window to window in tenements, or the somewhat kinder interpretation of unsophisticated rural farmwives hanging up their washing in the countryside. Whenever someone urbane is depicted, they either have a dryer or go to a laundry service. |
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Afezeria
 Posts: 817 Location: Malaysia, Kuantan. |
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I'm guessing most people in my area used clothing line in order to dried clothes, either the line is hand-made or purchased from supermarkets. I'm myself hanged them out outside, though no washing is commenced especially during rainy season. Hell, to be blunt, I don't even know that drier existed, but I'm poor as heck, only managed to survived efficiently as a lower middle class so no super top of the line expensive technologies for me. Yeah, my location is typed on the left side.
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GATSU
Posts: 15305 |
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They use clotheslines, because suplexes are harder to pull off.
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TheAncientOne
 Posts: 1871 Location: USA (mid-south) |
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While the article states, "they tend to be very conscious about being energy efficient", one inconsistency I recall regarding this is the lack of insulation in most Japanese homes. Of course, they tend to keep energy usage low by being stingy with the use of A/C in the summer and heat in the winter.
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Suena
Posts: 289 |
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Discussions on domestic habits always get a lot of comments.
I'll air dry clothes for the two months of the year that it's warm/sunny. But the rest of the year it's too cool and humid for already-damp clothes to ever dry. Especially if you forget to bring the clothes in before a random rainshower, or before night comes and the dewfall attacks. I guess it could work year round if you only wash a few garments at a time in your sink so you can always dry the clothes in the bathroom on the towel rack, but when you're washing for a whole family there isn't enough places to hang stuff up to dry indoors. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18186 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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I've lived in Indiana my whole life. We always had a dryer when I was growing up, but my Mom preferred to hang out clothes on clotheslines (my Dad even put up metal poles which looked somewhat like mini-power line poles so she'd have multiple lines) on good weather days until she started regularly working outside of the house. From that point on she mostly used the dryer, as she did in winter months or rainy weather.
As an adult living on my own I've almost exclusively used a dryer, except for a couple of clothing items which require special drying instructions. This is mostly a convenience matter, since I tend to do laundry at odd times of the day (usually not when the sun's out). I don't think anyone else in my neighborhood uses outdoor clotheslines these days, even though (to my knowledge) there's no local rule against it. The extra electricity cost seems to be negligible, although I'm also only usually running a couple of loads per week. |
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Nom De Plume De Fanboy
 SubscriberExempt from Grammar Rules Posts: 612 Location: inland US west, pretty rural |
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A couple of things.
My USA teenage sisters, in the '60's, would not be caught dead hanging their undies out on a line, no matter how much my mom nagged them. And we lived on a farm out in the country. Another, in the 30 years after WW 2, the US had an unnaturally high standard of living vis-a-vis the rest of the world, and most Americans and Canadians got a mindset about things as necessities that were luxuries in the rest of the world. And we have- I think- the cheapest electricity on the planet. Which feeds into this: Americans are crazy about saving time. Any gadget that saves time, we are total suckers for it. So, loading/un-loading a dryer takes a couple minutes at most. If that saves me, at 20 minutes a week to put out/take in stuff, then 1 to 2 hours a month, then for $10 a month, well heck yeah, I'm down for it. And people with teenagers don't have to nag 'em about it, or maybe just a little.
Brings up something that I think we do share with Japan; any kitchen gadget that is advertised as making life easier, we are total suckers for those too. If late night ads are to be believed.  ( But wait! There's more! But I think I'll quit while I'm ahead... )
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Randamo
 Posts: 23 Location: Central Coast, Australia |
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Living in Australia. My family never had a dryer, still don't have one out of home. The house I'm in has full sun all year round out the back and it's always warm. In my case it doesn't make any sense to have a dryer.
I actually bought a Japanese futon because I find it more comfortable/space efficient; but another plus is that putting it out in the full sun gets rid of dust mites and other gunk that tends to just sit in a mattress for 10 years. Sunlight is cleansing. I imaging it would be very hard to properly air out a futon in those Japanese apartment blocks, since one side of half the futon seems to get any sunlight in a given day. |
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belvadeer
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It seems to be the same in South Korea. The apartment I was assigned to during my overseas teaching gig in 2009 had only a washing machine out on the balcony. Of course that was during the winter, so I had to bring everything inside once the washer was done, turn the heater on and hang everything indoors in order for it to dry.
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PsychedelicSNAFU
Posts: 8 |
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This is a nice question. I am Asian and I didn't find it to be particularly different because in my country it would be rare to see a dryer. Like VERY rare. I hardly thought that what they do in the anime was different because that is what we do in my country. I am not meaning to be a racist but the person who asked the question might not be an Asian or rather in his/her country it is a normality to use dryer.
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WingKing
Posts: 617 |
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My grandmother (a German immigrant) always clothesline-dried everything, but she lived in the Southern California desert, so she was in an ideal climate for it. My Mom also used clotheslines a lot when my family was younger and poorer, but she did get a dryer at some point before I was born and has used one ever since. I've never used a clothesline except for times when I helped out my grandmother, and here in Maryland I'm definitely living in one of those "damp most of the year" states, with our humid summers and wet/snowy winters. At best, I'd maybe be able to line-dry for about half the year if I wanted to (and living in a small space with wall-to-wall carpeting makes indoor drying impractical). However, there are people in Maryland who do like to use clotheslines, and the state passed a "Right-to-Dry" law a few years ago that prohibits homeowners associations and condos from banning them completely. |
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CandisWhite
Posts: 282 |
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Holy culture shock, Batman!
I live in Alberta, Canada. I was totally aware of people who hung clothes to dry outside but did not realize that there were many people who didn't think it was necessary to even own a dryer! We have always used a dryer. Always! We hang clothes up when the material (e.g. 100% cotton) would be damaged or altered by the heat, but do it indoors on a rack with hangers or on a clotheshorse and dry everything else using the machine. I even have lingerie where the label expressly instructs you to dry it quickly. I think there's been a big culture shock going the other way, too: Dryers are not luxuries in English North America; They are considered a regular appliance. People may not always have the fanciest one but they've usually got one (There are even apartments and condos that have them right in the unit). It depends on the kind of dryer, how often you run the dryer, when you run it, and where you live, as to how much it costs to run but unless you've got 10 kids or are running it for every little thing, it's not a big expense. |
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relyat08
 Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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My family used clotheslines throughout my entire childhood, and only stopped because we moved cross country and the neighborhood we moved to had an HOA rule against having them at all. It didn't help that when you have 10 people in your family, the amount of space you need to dry all of the clothes is way more than what a 0.25 acre piece of property in a subdivision has. Since the move, everyone in my family has used a dryer pretty much exclusively. People just have different circumstances depending on their environment.
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Sakagami Tomoyo
 Posts: 940 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
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Yes. Most apartment buildings ban hanging your washing outside. I do have a couple of clotheshorses I can use inside, but it's not a big apartment and I don't like having damp clothes taking up that much space for that long, so I usually just use the dryers in the communal laundry. In the house I grew up in, we had a dryer, but short of a scenario where it was absolutely necessary to get a specific piece of clothing dry in a massive hurry, my parents refused to use it because of how much power it used. If it was sunny, clothes went on the Hills Hoist in the backyard. If it was rainy but still warm, the clothesline under cover on the patio. If it was cold, clotheshorses over the central heating vents. |
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