Washing cloths:
Washing cloths talks up quite a bit of time for a majority of the Chinese population. It would be a safe estimate to say 1 billion people get their laundry done by hand each week in China probably much more.
In the countryside the water quality is questionable. The government estimates that 300 million people do not have good water. That might be conservative. Anyone who can afford bottled water for drinking does but most can't afford it. The pictures below show some clothes and vegetable washing places.
The water being carried off will probably be used in cooking and possibly drinking. The women at the larger pool is washing vegetables. The pool is dual purpose for cloths and vegetables. The pool at the right is for house and watering crops. The white pit in front is mixing some sort of whitish stuff which might be lime. ??
One lady is washing the other is pulling up water from the well. THis is in the middle of the city, Susong in Anhui but could be in any city in China.
Nice setup for washing cloths for the village women.
This lady does not have such a nice setup as the girls above.
This pool is nice and set by some house clusters. The laundry and vegetable washing is done off the platforms.
Common washing setup for anyplace in central China.
That IS a package of Tide off to the right.
Typical farmhouse setup.
This washing area was just built in June 2005 and the local village women are probably pretty happy about it. The village is part of Huangshi and just outside the city limits.
Nice setup and common around east Hubei.
The following was built in 2004 in Hunan and is part of a drainage/canal which also feeds the fields. It's a very common setup for Hunan seen often in Hunan.
Note the TIDE package.
Typical village washing area at a river.
Washday at a mountain stream.
