We had just begun to settle down in a little house we rented in Ubud, Bali. It had the traditional bathroom with a tap, with which to fill a wooden tub, and a dipper to scoop the water and pour over yourself. We did the hand washing of clothes in the traditional aluminium basin. Having wrung the clothes out we looked for the clothes line only to find none. So we rummaged for the rope in our suitcase (we usually carry a length of nylon rope just in case our suitcases bust open while being loaded onto or unloaded from aircraft) that hubby strung between two pillars along the verandah. Mollified, I took up a piece of clothing, snapped it in the air and then smugly hung one item. When I was about to hang the next piece a young lady rushed towards me and agitatedly jabbered,"Jangan, jangan! ( don't, don't)". Startled and disconcerted, I gave her a querulous look. Was there a snake somewhere ( I've had that experience in India)? Were the pillars to weak to hold the line up? Was the roof collapsing? Were we not supposed to hang the clothes along the verandah? "The clothes line is too high. It should be lower than the padmasana (throne)." What throne? She was referring to the open-air family altar (like a totem pole), with a seat on top of it, in the family compound. In Balinese Hinduism, God is everywhere and has no form, and so a seat is available in every Balinese household compound for the holy visitor. In deference to the divine, who may be sitting there watching over you, you hang your washing at a lower level.
Watch your head Faux Pas
Something similar happened in Myanmar. We were visiting my husband's uncle in Yangoon. As with most Asian cultures, after my shower, bucket and dipper style, I hand washed the clothes in a pail, wrung them out, and took them out to the frontyard where I had seen lines with clothes flapping. As I was doing it the daughter ran helter-skelter to me and took over. She wouldn't let me hang the clothes there. She hung them in the backyard. I didn't think much of it since the work was done anyway. We never had a problem with my husband's clothes because she, his cousin, would wash for him.
It took me a couple of visits before I realised that men's and womens clothes were washed and hung out separately. Furthermore the women's clothes, especially undergarments, had to be hung at a height such that men can't accidentally brush against them. Men's and women's laundry couldn't be washed together.
I learnt much later of their belief that if a male walked under a lungyi, sarong, or underwear, especially those of women, he would be enfeebled and unmanned. That is why protesters in Myanmar took to stringing up women’s under clothing on lines across the streets to slow down police and soldiers because walking beneath them is traditionally considered bad luck for men. In fact, pictures during the protest show soldiers taking down the lines before marching forward.
More pragmatic ways and means
One culture hangs clothes with God in mind while the other does out of superstiti9n.
And then of course there are more practical reasons for hanging out clothes through various devices and locations
Laundry on the go
In hotels or motels I keep laundry very simple, using hotel laundry bags to store my soiled stuff just for a few days before we find accommodation with a washing machine or a laundromat nearby. Most of the time I wash the clothes with hotel shampoo, and just improvise places to hang them dry. Sometimes there's a clothes line across the shower or tub. But, wait a minute! Are you allowed to do your laundry in the wash basin? There will be no questions asked as long as you wash carefully and are respectful of the room. That is exactly what I did while cruising. Even the grandchildren's got done that way. Some cruise ships used to have self-serve laundry, the machines activated through tokens bought from the ship, but not anymore. We plan in such a way that the day we disembark we have only one set of clothes to be washed. It helps to pack clothes that drip dry. Now we get free laundry on our favourite cruise line, having done more that 400 days with them.
When we were travelling in The US in 1996, laundromats were easily accessible. In later travels we made sure to book AirBnBs with a washing machine. If it is an apartment we may have to wait our turn in the common laundry room mostly in the basement, and once, even in the underground car park. If we happened to stay in one or two places consecutively without the facility we make sure the next accommdation we book has a washing machine.
Losing sleep over laundry
While in Hamburg, Germany, our accomodation had the washers and dryers in the basement which were working to full capacity that evening. The caretaker of the facility was doing the sheets from the rooms that had been vacated. I had to wait till almost midnight to do the laundry. By the time I got them washed, dried and folded it was already 2 am (not unusual in our overland travels).
When we get home late after exploring the streets, and then prepare dinner, washing tends get done close to midnight.
Most of South America and Europe does not use dryers.
Sometimes a clothes horse is provided. Oftentimes we've hung them on the furniture and even on opened cabinet doors.
The next stay in Germany, a few years later, was in a high rise in Munich. I did the washing in the evening and had to dry it on the clothes horse in the balcony hoping it would dry by morning so we could pack them for our return flight home. We managed.
Poles and pulleys, even across canals
Singapore has iconic clothes poles jutting out of the flats like multicoloured flags. Hanging clothes in Europe's old quarters involves lines running across streets, as long as there are no tram lines and wires obstructing them. They hang high above the pedestrians -- no one will ever walk into them. How do they hang the clothes seemingly in mid-air? Almost every street, in the old quarters, has a row of poles on either side of the road. The clothes line from an apartment is looped throug a pulley fixed to the pole on the opposite side. We've even seen them across the lesser canals in Venice.
There are actually people whose profession is to put up these pulleys!
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