This Is Japan
Explore everyday life in Japan
Having grown up in the United States, I never realized just how special having a clothes dryer was. I also didn’t know that many people around the world, most perhaps, don’t know what it feels like to take their laundry straight out of the dryer and put their clothes on when their shirts, pants, socks, etc. are still warm and soft and radiating the smell of fabric softener sheets.
In Japan, there are clothes dryers, but they don’t generate the heat that clothes dryers in America do. Often, these clothes dryers are single units that double as both a washing machine and a clothes dryer, and generally, it takes hours for them to dry even one piece of laundry.
For this reason, even though it is still a luxury to have a clothes dryer in Japan, it is, for the most part, useless. Unless you find yourself in an emergency, where you must have something dry in a few hours, you will most likely be hanging your laundry either somewhere in your apartment/house to dry, or outside. Which, of course, depends on the weather.
Japan being a country of four seasons and all kinds of weather, knowing what the weather brings is very important for getting your laundry done. So, how do you know if today will be a good day for doing laundry? Well, beyond using your own good judgment, you can watch the news.
Every morning, during the daily forecast, there is a segment dedicated specifically to laundry drying weather conditions across the country.
Will it be rainy? Will it be damp? Will it be too windy? All of this is not only talked about, but is shown to viewers through easy to understand symbols that forecast the laundry drying conditions for three days: a double circle means your laundry will dry very quickly, a circle means that it will dry fairly quickly, a triangle means that it will take time but, most likely, your laundry will dry, and an X means that you had better hang your laundry inside on your curtain racks or some kind of laundry rack because no matter how long you leave it outside, it’s not going to dry.
This is an ongoing series that will explore various aspects of daily life in Japan. My hope is that this series will not only reveal to its followers, image by image, what Japan looks like, but that it will also inform its followers about unique Japanese items and various cultural and societal practices. If you are interested in getting regular updates about life in Japan, please consider following me at @boxcarblue. If you have any questions about life in Japan, please don’t hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer all of your questions.
This is so cool. I had assumed that since Japan is a hub for electronics they would have dryers.
Is this possibly due to a minamilist culture? Case in point, traditional dining areas lack chairs and they kneel by the table on the floor?
It might have to do more with space. I think most major cities in Japan are, well, quite populated, especially Tokyo. This means apartments and houses tend to be smaller and tightly packaged, so there's no space for an extra machine when you could have one that sort of does both things.
I agree, have you ever seen Japanese hotels? The sleeping quarters are like drawers.
They do have dryers, but most people don't buy them, presumably because of space issues. Houses and apartments in Japan are designed with a place to put your washing machine. Usually this space is just big enough to fit one machine. That's why dryers here are often two-in-one.
There are also stacked units where the dryer is on top of the washing machine. I don't know if these work better or not, but I'm pretty sure they are much more expensive.
I think ventilation and building codes also account for the difference. If I remember correctly, in the States, dryers must have a vent that releases some of the heat they produce outside of the house. Japanese apartments/houses aren't equipped with such vents.
In addition to space, it's expensive to run a dryer. Our energy bill is already crazy expensive without a dryer. Actually, the clothes dry pretty fast out on the balcony. Only during the colder months is it more challenging so the clothes are hung in one of the rooms with the air-con and they dry pretty quickly.
Japan is strange. I too always had the image of high tech, but living there you realize we're more high tech i the states, at least in Cali.
There definitely is a strange barrier where the great technology they have here isn't incorporated into daily life for some reason. Like the perpetual usage of fax machines here. It's amazing to me that people still use the things, but at the same time, it makes sense here: keeping people busy, having a tangible message you can hold in your hand, encouraging people to interact and reinforce office relations, being able to file something, these are all valued here. Maybe they are even valued over convenience. I'm not sure. It's a difficult are to make sense of.
Luckily we here don't have those problems. Dryest part of Germany, we either have easy to spot rain (5%) or easy to spot sunshine/dry with clouds (90%). The rest is just the little spice in life called uncertainty.
I've always lived in rainy places. Ame-Otoko 雨男.
hang up the rain dolls :D
I need to put them on a necklace and carry them around with me.
I love these little post about Japanese culture. Such a fascinating place Japan is to me in many aspects.
I find it kinda funny how they just developed a small segment just for this.
It´s like nah, don't worry about thinking whether or not you can dry your clothes today, we'll tell you.
That sums up the approach to things pretty well over here. If you can do it, someone will tell you. If you can't do it, someone will tell you. Many times, though, not being told that you can do something carries the meaning that you can't, or aren't supposed to do whatever it is that you want to do/are doing.
Japan is on my To-Do list. I like hearing and reading about it. Thank you. Followed
You should definitely make the time to come and visit. It's a great place.
interesting. followed.
Glad to hear it. Thank you!
I enjoy learning about Japan as well....thank you
I'm glad to hear it. Thanks for reading.
Interesting. We have dryers but not really dryer sheets 😠. But thank god there is the internet and I am doing a diy version.
How do you go about making DIY dryer sheets? That would make an interesting post.
Simple,fabric softener in a mason jar, about a third, rest fill up with water. Put a dish sponge in it. Before you use it, squeeze liquid out, put damp sponge in the dryer with the clothes. That's it!😉
So simple. That's great! Fabric softener in the dryer is so much better than liquid fabric softener in the washing machine.
Cool. Useful forecast!
It's definitely helpful when you hang your laundry in the morning and then leave for work. It's hard to predict what the weather will be like in the afternoon sometimes.
Another fascinating peek inside a beguiling culture - thanks for posting :)
Thanks for reading!
Great...vote and follow me as community of steem
Thanks. I'll check you out.