I've long bitched and moaned about the inefficiencies of Korean front-loader washing machines. The pyojun (normal) cycle generally takes around 90 minutes to two hours. (My own machine takes two hours. My machine back in Hayang took 90-100 minutes.) For a couple months in my new place here in Goyang City, I've chafed at how much of a drag it is to have to dump in the wash and wait two hours before it's done.
No longer!
A second look at the washer's function-select dial shows the kwae-sok (쾌속) cycle, i.e., the super-fast cycle. In fact, on my machine, it's labeled as "쾌속30," which means the cycle takes only thirty minutes.
Like an American machine.
I'm immeasurably happier now. I don't really give a crap if the washing isn't as thorough; I don't normally stink up my clothes that much, anyway, unless I've taken a 30,000-step walk—and that hasn't happened since, oh, January. So a thirty-minute cycle works fine for me, and now that I've used the kwae-sok function two or three times, I've seen and smelled no noticeable difference in laundering quality.
Back when I had thought I would be doomed to two-hour washes, I had been at pains to get my laundry into the machine by 9:30PM at the latest so that the cycle would end before midnight and not disturb the neighbors.* Now, I can start my laundry at 11:25PM and be done before midnight. Just having that extra wiggle room is cause for joy.
It's a shame that it took me nearly two months to look more closely at that function dial to see what other settings were available, but hey—better late than never.
*My neighbors don't pay me the same consideration: through the walls, I've heard the musical jingle-bells, signaling the end of a cycle, after 1AM on many a night.
_
Can you not disable the chimes?
ReplyDeleteI have heard the chimes at midnight...
ReplyDelete...and there's no way to deactivate them.
So the land of the morning calm, an electronics producer and leader in the world, doesn't domestically produce a washer/dryer where one can deactivate the end cycle chime.
ReplyDeleteVery disappointing.
Have you heard any interesting neighbor-sounds through the walls of your bedroom?
ReplyDeleteAll washing machines here are actually imbued with the spirit of a small child sacrificed at the factory. The chimes are part of a Buddhist ritual praying for their souls. I suspect that if you somehow managed to disable these chimes you would have haunting problems.
ReplyDeleteI believe Charles has won the interwebs today.
ReplyDeleteHenry,
ReplyDeleteIf you're asking about sex noises, well... I hear only the voices of children's ghosts. Children are the product of sex, so maybe those voices count as sex noises in some indirect way...?
High praise from our Maximum Leader! My week is made.
ReplyDelete