Chinese consumers like big-screen televisions, automobiles, washing machines, double-door refrigerators with automatic icemakers — but not clothes dryers.
According to a spokesman for the appliance store Best Buy, the Chinese market for dryers "is by no means fully developed." Other businesses report similar experiences.
Zhou Lei, who works in sales for a top securities company in Shanghai, said, "It’s a lifetime habit formed a long time ago, and an entrenched one. I like to lay clothes out or hang them to be exposed to sunlight. It’s cleaner, and the sunlight can kill the bacteria."
Boston.com reports Shanghai authorities consider all that hanging laundry so unsightly that in April, before the start of the ongoing Shanghai World Expo, they issued an edict banning the practice of hanging clothes out to dry.