Now that's a Chinese laundry! Washing hung out on students' balconies creates a bright patchwork of colours
By Jill Reilly
PUBLISHED: 05:55 EST, 27 November 2012 | UPDATED: 05:59 EST, 27 November 2012
Hung out to dry on a warm afternoon, the clothes of students at a Chinese university create a bright patchwork of colours.
Very few Chinese people own clothes dryers so the majority simply hang their clothes out to dry naturally like these tenants at Hubei University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
In its densely packed cities, the preference for outdoor drying usually means that a common view along residential streets is clothes, hanging from balconies, pinned to trees, or suspended from telephone and power lines.
Rainbow of washing: Sheets and clothes are hung out to dry in the sun at Hubei University of Traditional Chinese Medicine
Sometimes clothes are hung on extended metal poles stretching out horizontally from upper-floor apartment windows.
Other times they are attached to circular contraptions that take up less space and often a simple wooden stick is balanced precariously across two supports.
As increasingly affluent Chinese embrace all the conveniences of a middle-class Western lifestyle there is one glaring exception stands out: the clothes dryer.
Full house: There are over 10,000 students studying at the university so accommodation can be tight
Drying out: The clothes all dry in the sun on the balconies
The practical reasons are that Chinese apartments are often small, electricity can be expensive, and the dryer’s price tag still makes it seem like a luxury few here can afford.
But in 2010, in Shanghai, China's largest metropolis, drying your clothes in the open was deemed archaic.
Authorities issued an edict banning the practice of hanging clothes out to dry deeming it as 'uncivilized.'
As increasingly affluent Chinese embrace all the conveniences of a middle-class Western lifestyle there is one glaring exception stands out: the clothes dryer
Green: Although hanging out clothes on a balcony is now seen as archaic it is still cheap and green friendly
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