A lot of the places I visit tend to have something in common. It’s an odd thing, really. I can’t explain why or how, but somehow they all seem to be places where people hang their laundry out to dry. I don’t know what it is or why it happens but somehow wherever I go, Boom! there’s the laundry. It’s perpetually laundry day wherever I happen to be. You know that joke about how there’s really only one 7-11 convenience store and it’s just following you around? I’m starting to think there is really only just one washing machine and, by golly, there it is again! It’s hot on my tail, I tell you, hot on my tail. At least, I can’t seem to shake it and the evidence is clean before our eyes.
Now, maybe the cities, towns, and little villages I visit all just know I’m coming and decide to be nice about it. Maybe they got wind (excuse the pun) of my arrival, they heard I was coming, and decided to collectively clean the stink off. You laugh but it’s entirely possible. Maybe they know I’m coming and, by golly, they just don’t want to stink up the place, right? So, the day before my arrival, they all band together and secretly (or maybe not so secretly) band together and get their inner suds on? Er, maybe not. OK, so maybe it’s because I tend to frequently hang out to places next to clotheslines? That’s probably a more likely scenario, even if no puns are involved. I’m a closeted clothesline hanger-on-er. Who knew that was even such a thing?
No matter the reason, I’m like a clothesline magnet. Wherever I go, that’s where they are or, at least, where they seem to be. I tend to just find them in the wild. At least, I swear I am not hunting them, rather they just appear to show up randomly, right behind me, when I’m not even looking for them.
If I’m being honest, I don’t mind them at all. Fact is, I didn’t even own a clothes dryer myself until sometime last year. (I used to use a drying rack out behind the house, and wound up chasing my socks in the wind on more than one occasion.) Now that I own a dryer, I must confess, I love it. But, I don’t mind seeing the clothing out on the lines. No, in fact I rather like it, at least I think it can make for interesting photographs. Long live the clothesline! Viva la clean laundry! Here’s a photo of yet another one!
This is a clothesline from the Ping’an Zhuang Village in Guangxi, China. This little village is at the top of the Longsheng rice terraces, in central China on the outskirts of Guilin. The area is also called the “Dragon’s Backbone” as the terraces resemble the spine of a dragon if you look at them a certain way. Now, I don’t know much about dragons if I’m being honest but, if I had to guess, they have giant fire breathing clean undies fluttering in the wind somewhere nearby (probably just out of view of this more mortal laundry, eh?)
Get your suds on, it’s laundry day. Say cheese!
Until next time…