Ulaanbaatar, MongoliaMonday, October 19, 2009
This is a dry, dry climate. Leave a half-eaten apple on the table and when you come back a few hours later, it's like it's been in a fruit dryer. Leave your coffee dregs out overnight, and there's a thick paste at the bottom of your cup in the morning. Left-over rice left out overnight returns to its pre-cooked form.
The bottoms of your feet are drier than a bone.
So, we finally bought a humidifier.
While we are still figuring out which of our three kitchen-dining-living room outlets to stick the thing into, we thought we'd review the instruction manual.
"Ultrasonic technology is a very mature technology and being widely used in various domain, ultrasonic humidifiers is adopt ultrasonic high frequency theory transfer the water into 1-5 m super particles and then being propelled by a small fan into the air evenly accompany the ion generated by the humidifier to make the air much more moist and fresh." [sic]
Wow! Sounds pretty high tech.
"With ion exchange resin to soften the water, usefully to avoid the "black power." [sic]
Avoid the "black power"? Is that a political statement?--or do they mean "black powder"?
Finally, we noted the environmental concern of the manufacturers: "Disposal: Do not dispose this product as unsorted municipal waste. Collection of such waste separately for special treatment is necessary."
I must say, the likelihood of any formal separation of the waste stream in this part of the world is rather slim...
