Hand Washing Dishes
My first cultural shock!
And it had to be with the german culture :)
Currently I am sharing my apartment with 2 German guys, Marko and Sven (and a german girl too, Nadine, but she is not part of this story). Of course, one of the apartment rules is to wash your dishes as soon as you stop using them instead of just park them on the sink and let them pile up. :) :)
Anyway.. yesterday Marko was washing the dishes and I realized he doesnt take the foam out!! Meaning that he puts the dish into the water full of detergent (and therefore foam) and then he just takes it directly into this thing where you put the dishes to dry (dont have a clue about the name in english and i dont feel like searching the net)!!
In panic I reached for Sven, that was in the living room, so that he could explain him that he was doing it wrong. Naive as I am I just thought that it was probably the first time he was washing his dishes and he didnt know how to do it!
But I was soo wrong. Sven came and told me he does the same!!!This means they dont pass the dishes/glasses/whatever through clean water/running tap water after passing then through the detergent/foam water!
Meaning that all the foam/detergent stays on the dish and will still be there when you eat!Furthermore, Marco tried to convince me that dish detergent is inocuous and that there is no problem with having it on the dishes!!! No way!!! Otherwise why do we also pass ourselves through clean water when having a shower, I asked? And he said it is bacause our skin is sensitive and the dishes not!! And that they would never let dishwasher detergent to be sold if it wasnt safe!
Well, as one thing I still remember from cultural shock is that there is no right or wrong, simply different ways of facing the same situation, I ask:
How do you wash your dishes??
This is how I do it...
4 Comments:
I had the same experience while living in England. I got grossed out. Thereafter, whenever I was offered tea, I hesitated to say yes.
Holy shit, I have to intervene: There is definitively no German tradition for this toxic dish-washing style! :-)
Most of the people I know use pure running water to clean the dishes from the detergent afterwards.
This is the way how clichs are born...
Have a good time!
Ciao,
Simon
you think thats bad?? try go to a juice bar in cairo... words such as soap, dish detergent, wherever..they dont know!!!
Well Ana, as the AFS motto always said "It's not good, it's not bad, it's just different", I know it can be grose and unconfortable, but you can always come to a place where both of you guys agree to some rules and follow it.
It's not easy living with other people from other cultures, and I know exactly what you mean with piling up the dishes (I had that problem last year with trainees I lived in in Guatemala), but hey there's always a happy way out.
Hope everything besides melting because of the heat and washing all the dishes yourself (to make sure they don't have soup), is all right in Dubai.
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