Thanks to one of my readers (a parent of a student who lived in Beijing), I have a new perspective on the smallness of the appliances here. I’ve placed his response below:
“You may wonder why the refrigerators and washers are relatively small and dryers are rare in China, right? Well, the definition of “fresh food” in China means meats or vegetables butchered/harvested the same day [it’s eaten] or the day before and “unrefrigerated.” You can see live fish in Chinese grocery stores. As I know, most Chinese families do grocery shopping everyday or every other day in order to get fresher food. Larger refrigerators are really unnecessary and do not sell well because of their higher costs, higher power consumption, and larger in size. Besides, the housing cost is very high; an apartment of 1000 sqf (90 sqm) in the area you live in Beijing would cost somewhere between 2.5 and 3 million RMB. So the sizes of apartments in China are relatively small and the kitchens and bathrooms are also small. That’s another reason why refrigerators and washers are smaller. The actual cost of electricity in China is about 0.6-1 RMB per KWH, which is comparable with the price in our area; Virginia Power sells electricity at about 11 cents per KWH including all taxes and surcharges. But the salary in China is much lower. So using electricity to dry clothes is an expensive option for most people.
“Since 2004, I went to China to visit my parents almost every year and see a lot of changes. China today is much better than the time when I left (1986); however, the living standard in the US is still higher than China nowadays. I am enjoying reading your blogs, which remind me a lot of memories of China.
“If you also do shopping in the US and are familiar with the prices in the US, I hope you can write a blog comparing the prices between the US and China, which is a very interesting topic.”
This writer mentions the shopping differences between the two countries. While I’m not a big shopper here or there (unless it’s food, of course), one interesting aspect I’ve uncovered is that some of the mid-level clothes (such as my trademark polo shirts) are much higher (sometimes 2x) here than in the US. I was surprised, so I asked. I was told that modern (i.e., younger) Chinese people do not believe the quality of clothes is high if the price is low, and thus they won’t buy clothes unless they are expensive.
DC's Asian Adventures 