How the washing machine broke me in China

I’m just going to come out and admit this – I don’t know how to use the washing machine. Washing machines in China are of a different style completely and on top of that the buttons and controls are in Chinese characters.

So, while I’ve been able to go to a store and buy laundry detergent, I STILL don’t know how to use the washing machine and I’m running dangerously low on the clean-clothes supply I brought from home when I moved here.

I have a roommate, but I haven’t seen her since the first day I moved in and even if I did see her, she’s also a westerner and could very well also not know how to use the washing machine, either.

Sometimes I look at the buttons on the machine and I think, “I could just press this button. It’s probably this button. There’s a good chance this is the button I should use.” But then I have visions of flooding the apartment with an erroneous button selection and I retreat from the washing machine, dejected, broken and a shell of my former self.

Because, really, how could a washing machine be the single hardest obstacle I’ve come up against in China? I don’t know the language, but I’m able to get around on public transportation, order food in restaurants, buy clothing in stores and do my banking. But the washing machine is seriously killing me.

In the two months or so I had to plan before moving here, I did some hardcore Google research about what some of the challenges would be for me moving here and no one indicated using the washing machine would break me.

(I was however warned that dryers aren’t all that common, and I did move into an apartment where there is no dryer. But that really has had no impact on my life since I’d need to use the washer before I dry anything.)

When I do figure out how to use the washing machine, there will be a post for any other sad expats in China who also don’t know how to use their washing machines.