I'm a little teapot, short and stout

What happens when the old meets the new? Lynnette and I went out to Gome a few days ago to take a look at white goods designed for the Chinese market. Gome consists of four floors of home appliances ranging from cell phones to refrigerators to washers and dryers, though not your typical Best Buy or Home Depot experience.

I struggle here because no company has really designed for a certain room in the house holistically. Why can’t someone apply a consistent language across all the appliances in my kitchen so that my fridge, my microwave, my water heater and my stove element all look like they all belong in the same family? Part of this may be because appliances are still a new luxury for this market and there aren’t defined spaces for them yet in the house. A good example of this is that my washer is in the bathroom but my dryer is in the kitchen. Huh?

Among the masses of very cutely designed appliances (like the water filter that looks like a giant fruit of some sort), we found a few gems, like the space heater that looked like a giant electric fan. The electric kettle was definitely the winner though. Whereas most electric kettles are slim and modern looking, this Midea electric kettle references the old ceramic tea pots that go back thousands of years in Chinese history. In a traditional Shanghainese home furnished with traditional furniture, this electric kettle would look a lot less out of place!

Purchasing the teapot was another adventure. Everyone has to pay on the first floor. The salesperson gives you a slip of paper to take to the cash register, and while you pay, they go to the storage room to get you a fresh unopened box. After you have paid, they open the box for you and show you that all the pieces are inside. What is worthwhile to note is that Midea has leveraged this expected part of the purchasing ritual to build a box that sits like a regular flat box for shipping, but when opened, re-closes to form a sturdy handle for the customer who must carry it home. What a nice gesture of customer service! Reminds me of Fry’s Electronics but better – I mean, we were buying a tea pot, not an entertainment system!

For more photos from our white goods exploration:
WhiteGoods And Home Appliances Album