Still huh? Thought it was in Taipei. Or is the water still not safe through the mains pipes directly
There is some debate on this topic, in which some people will argue that the water is fine!
I have however yet to see any Taiwanese at my workplace ever do this (not once in over twenty years).
Guy
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If I remember correctly there was a whole series of “health scares” popularized by the media and probably invented by the 3C stores on the dangers of not sterilizing your dishes after washing. Usual nonsense as people insisted you needed one and yet were more than happy to eat at a cheap restaurant where the dishes and chopsticks were being swirled in a dirty puddle outside.
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One apartment I rented had that dish dryer quite prettily installed above the sink, as part of the cabinet units. Worked great as a dish drying rack when I did the dishes. I never actually turned the thing on.
What about erupting tiled floors? (See here for example.) Are they unique? I suppose those happen elsewhere, but I’ve only heard of them here.
I don’t know where you all live, but my dishes don’t even completely dry in 24h during the winter.
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That’s intense.
I hope you consider running a dehumidifier?
Guy
There are still many houses like this in the UK.
and also kitchens
and a tap for hot water and another for cold water
Most kitchens have relatively small cabinet space for storage. Taiwanese kitchens normally store far fewer dishes than western ones. We reuse the same dishes far more frequently here. Or, at least, store far fewer “luxury” dishes that are never used. Makes sense to me to have a fan to dry stuff fast for lazy people that don’t want to wipe nor have the space to have 10 different kinds of plates x10 for each person in the house.
I don’t because I don’t mind wiping my dishes with a towel. But that’s just how I was punished as a child haha. I mean raised.
The closed cabinet styles, as an FYI, do harbor LOADS of pathogens. So I also got rid of mine as they harbor loads of bullshit as they stay dirty and moist. The UVC ones are obviously terrible for our eyes, and don’t reach every crevice, so are also fairly pointless.
We do, but thanks for the remainder. It was full already.
This reminds me - the septic tanks in every apartment building because sewer is only for liquid waste or something? Building management shows photos of how clean it is after being emptied every couple of months. Not sure if this is Taiwan specific or not.
5 posts were merged into an existing topic: Off-topic musings
I’ve got two — a metal oven-type thing that I’m keeping as part of my landlady’s complimentary shit-she-doesn’t-want collection, and a newer plastic one that blows warm air through that my ex-girlfriend bought.
I also just use both of them for dish/utensil storage and rarely turn either on unless I’ve just done a load of washing up at once and I want it to dry quickly. Part of that is the shitty earthing in my apartment, where the metal one gives me electric shocks the next few times I brush against it or grab a fork, until I remember to unplug it again. 
My friend has a dishwasher and I’m sure others do too, though I guess the main thing is that kitchen space in Taiwanese kitchens is often at a premium. That has definitely put me off buying new appliances, like a microwave and stand mixer.
Storing dishes in a dishwasher doesn’t seem a great solution. I’d find it a bit gross to put the dirty dishes and utensils back in with the clean ones, and the alternative is leaving dirty dishes everywhere until you need to use the dishwasher again, and/or washing everything inside there every time you use a single plate.
Is that UK lingo for electrical grounding?
Guy
Apparently so. I suppose I might have said “grounding” instead, but “earth” seems acceptable as a verb also:
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A stand mixer is the big one, quite literally I suppose, for me. I’d like to have one but I wouldn’t use it that often, and it’d take up a lot of space.
When we got our Dr. Goods oven we had another kitchen cabinet built-to-fit for our kitchen, and the microwave is on the shelf above the oven.
Perhaps the wiring is another unique benefit - er, trait - of apartments here? We can’t turn the microwave and the oven on at the same time, or the fuse goes. And with most appliances, there’s that moment when I use pliers to pry off the earthing / grounding part of the plug, and I wonder what kind of future disaster I’m setting up for myself.
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Yeah, I can run up to two kitchen heating appliances (oven, kettle, and Instant Pot) at once. Not three though – that means a trip to the MCB box.
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“Earthing” is correct, or at least technically unambiguous. “Grounding” can have multiple meanings, but Americans do use it interchangeably with “earthing”.
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“Features” implies someone actually thought for more than 30 seconds before designing and appointing it, including laying the ubiquitous ugly lino and fitting out the average sterile Taiwanese apartment in the first place. Want some North Korean prison style bright white fluorescent lighting with that? I do like being able to completely flood my bathroom to wash away everything though. But I would pay up for air gapped floors like in my home country, you know, so when your neighbour drops their keys late at night, it doesn’t wake your whole family up. Features…
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Wow, dish dryers are unpopular! Surprised their exotic magic has not enchanted more foreigners. Yes, they are worse than dishwashers, but they are strange and cool! 
Collecting here the unique benefits (where, again, “unique” is defined as “hard to find in your home country,” not necessarily “only possible to find in Taiwan”) that I’ve spotted in this thread so far:
I’m surprised that that’s all that has been mentioned!
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As I underatand it you want to keep the dishes enclosed to prevent flies, roaches etc getting on them, but that means a long time to dry, ergo electric.
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