| Friday, November 14, 2008 |
| Shower Shenanigans |
 I used to think that there were few things in life worse than a cold shower.
You know the feeling. You're standing in the bathroom in the early morning hours, breaking away the cobwebs and fog of sleep, not particularly pleased with the fact that you're going to have to slog through the long day ahead of you instead of snuggling up under the covers. You turn on the shower and wait for the hot water to kick in. And you wait ... and wait ... and wait. Then it hits you:
I'm going to have to take a cold shower.
So you grit your teeth and play the cat-and-mouse game of getting wet without actually touching the water. You resign yourself to the body-wrenching torture of washing your hair, which requires not one, but two extended periods of standing under the torrent of frigid liquid-ice. When you finally get out of the shower, you're shivering and chattering and you want nothing more than to get some clothes on before you fall into that peaceful sleep of frozen death. And when it's over you're cursing the hot water heater/plumber/country or whomever or whatever is responsible for your plight.
Here in China, I encounter this situation much more often than I would like. People who've lived here more than a few months have resigned themselves to the fact that once every few weeks or so, you'll have to endure the dreaded cold shower. China's got a lot going for it and modernizing at an alarming rate. But let's be honest: there's a big difference between a "developed" and "developing" nation. Such as reliable hot water.
So I used to think that there were few things in life worse than a cold shower.
When we moved into our current apartment, I was pleasantly surprised to see that our hot water was not only reliable, but that it reached a pretty high temperature pretty quickly. Our landlord told us that they pump it in from a local hot spring, although she admitted that probably wasn't true. Either way, I was happy to have good hot water, especially since that can be a luxury around these parts.
I liked the hot water. That is, until I took my first shower, and I learned an important truth: there is something worse than a cold shower. It went a little like this: I turned on the shower, leaning the lever far to the left to get the hot water running. After it quickly turned hot and started steaming up the bathroom, I turned it to the middle to get an even temperature. Problem is, it stayed hot. I then moved it further and further to the right, expecting cooler droplets of water to hit me. But no, just more hot water. Finally, I moved it all the way to the right and much to my surprise, the water turned off completely. And then it dawned on me: our shower has no cold water.
So in the coming weeks and months I learned a new hatred, which is the even-more-evil-twin-brother of the cold shower: the scalding shower. Though I know some of you may think that this is an overreaction and that you like piping hot showers, allow me to contend with that thought. Though I'm not certain of this information, I'm going to assume that somewhere along the line the water companies and/or water heater companies had to put some kind of regulation on their hot water systems so that little Johnny or little Suzy couldn't turn on the hot water and suffer from 2nd degree burns. No such regulations exist in China. So when I say that the water in my shower is hot, it's a hot that doesn't even exist in North American plumbing. It's so hot that after a split second it actually feels cold - likely because you've burned off some nerve endings. (I think my students have the same problem. One of them put it this way, "You could cook instant noodles in these showers!")
The methods of actually using a scalding shower are pretty similar to the cold shower. You dance the getting-wet-without-actually-touching-water dance, only this time you endure searing pain instead of cold shock. Trust me, it's worse. Then you learn how to wet, wash, and rinse your hair in a single motion that lasts less than 2.3 seconds. The major difference is that instead of rushing to put on more clothes after you're done, you'd rather peel your own skin off (and sometimes you can!)
The moral of this rather long story is this: when you think you've got it bad, just remember, it could always be worse. A couple of weeks ago a plumber came to our apartment to fix our toilet, and he messed with the water valves. Now, I get cold showers again. And it's a blessing. |
posted by Aaron @ 10:20 PM  |
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| 1 Comments: |
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Good blog. I may use prat of it in my message this Sunday about gratitude (I'll give you yor dollar next time I see you :)
Dad
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Good blog. I may use prat of it in my message this Sunday about gratitude (I'll give you yor dollar next time I see you :)
Dad