A TCK Moment

Posted by Cynthia on December 29th, 2007 | Categorized as Fun and Games, General Forum | 634 views and 11 Comments

I think one of the things that come with being a TCK is to be “out of date” with certain parts of our “parent culture”. It could be pop culture or technology or whatever that’s “in”.

Personally I have experienced a lot of “out of date” situations and I’m just going to call it a “TCK moment”.

Here is something that happened today:

I just moved in this morning (Shanghai time) to my new apartment that I have signed the lease for a month or so ago. Of course, I have seen it before I signed it so I know what I am getting.

The apartment is 100% running on electric power so no gas stoves or gas heaters are found. I like that because I’m afraid of gas heaters…too many scary stories. So I have a gigantic electric heater in the bathroom and an electric stove! I like electric stoves because they are so easy to clean.

Anyways, back to the story. My previous apartment had gas heaters and stoves. Being in Asia, we use a lot of wok. So I had a wok which works really well with gas stoves. Having been only using electric stoves in the States, one thing I learned is that round wok bottoms cannot balance of flat electric stoves. So when I saw the electric stove in my new apartment I immediately think “Oh I can’t use the wok any more.” Which isn’t a big deal but that was what I thought.

Well was I wrong. Being an engineer, it’s quite embarrassing really. What I didn’t spend enough time thinking about was the indentations in the middle of each of the electric heating plates on the stove. The first thing that came to mind was “Must have something to do with heat transfers or just a design” and I didn’t think twice about it.

Then when I took out my wok today while unpacking, just for fun, I tried to put the wok on the stove. Instead of getting a wobbly wok on a flat stove the wok didn’t move. It didn’t move!!! And then I realized - the indentation! It was an “OMG Light bulb” moment for me. It was hilarious…technology in China is ahead of me! LOL It never occurred to me that I hardly ever see a flat-bottomed wok in China XD

So anyone else got the same “OMG Light bulb” stories to share? XD

Cynthia Yang

Born in Taiwan and grew up in Indonesia, Thailand and China. Went to the US for college and have been working between Shanghai and Connecticut ever since. Fluent in Mandarin and English and can understand basic conversation of Thai.