Russell's Blog

I keep meaning to sit down and write a blog entry about what it's been like so far, but things keep happening at a break-neck pace, and I just haven't had time. I only have a few minutes to write something, so I'll write about one of the small annoyances of this crazy place: Plumbing.

As everyone knows, China is making a huge effort to modernize. For the most part, it has been quite successful. In America, we mostly experience China's modernization in the form of the ever-escalating technical complexity of Chinese imports. Not so long ago, only crappy plastic toys and knock-offs had Made In China stickers. Today, you are probably reading this post on a computer made mostly out of parts bearing the same imprint. However, the overwhelming majority of China's modernization is for domestic consumption only. The streets are jammed with cool Made In China products that you will never see in America. The electric scooters, for example. The cell phone service is better in your average one-horse Chinese village than it is in Los Angeles.

Americans tend to assume that most of China's economy is geared toward exports; it isn't. The flood of Chinese goods we see coming into the Port of Long Beach is just the oversplash of China's industrial berserker rage. Most of it stays right here.

On the other hand, they don't seem to have quite figured out plumbing. I was trying to figure out why my 17th floor hotel room always smells like a sewer. It occurred to me that maybe there was something wrong with the drain. Notice anything missing?

That's right. No trap. From the booming roar that issues from the drain every time I use it, it sounds like it's a pretty straight shot from the sink to the sewer main in the basement, seventeen floors down.

Whoever designed this fixture was clearly aware of this problem; the drain has a built-in airtight, noise insulated drain cover. They opted for a heavy rotating high pressure plug instead of a little bendy bit in the pipe.

As Mimi would say, "That's China."