[tptacek]

People in China routinely use woks on electric stoves; they're just as common in China as they are here. There's a lot of mythology about woks and wok hei, most of which is based on people confusing restaurant cooking techniques with home cooking. This issue isn't racially coded.

[Freedom2]

This is my experience as well. I've spoken to Chinese co-workers who cook a lot of traditional food at home, and they have zero issues with electric stoves (induction or no) for cooking with a wok.

As for those who claim that gas stoves are needed for wok cooking w/ specific techniques, most people who I've actually asked about what they cook on the wok is basically "fried rice", or even worse, they don't actually have a wok at all, and are using the issue as a strawman to complain about government overreach.

[tptacek]

For what it's worth: I have a fussy gas range and I'd be peeved to have to give it up, and I don't have an opinion about whether it's good or bad to require new construction to use induction. But the racial angle on this is risible. It's evidence of bad faith argument.

[usrusr]

It's a recurring pattern: people not being able to tell "like in the country I/my ancestors came from" apart from "like in the decade/century I/my ancestors left the old country". In the emigrant's mind, the old country is forever locked in the old times. Can't really blame them for it, it's a natural mistake to make, but a mistake nonetheless.

[schrectacular]

I lived in China for a decade and never once saw an electric stove.

[tptacek]

I've lived in Oak Park, IL for over a decade, shopping for houses several times, and have never seen an electric stove. What's your point?

What's clearly the case is that homes in China do not generally have the ultra-powered gas wok burners that restaurants do, which is what people are talking about when they talk about what's distinctive about cooking on a wok.

[schrectacular]

My point was that in my experience they are far less common in China than in the US, as you were claiming. I guess one of us could go look up stats bit given the cost of the item and the relative affluence of the countries I seriously doubt they are close. What was your point in bringing up that they were similarly ubiquitous in both places?

[fsckboy]

woks are round (hemispherical) on the bottom, gas is better for heating that shape

[tptacek]

Not even that is true! This seems like another instance of people deriving every facet of their arguments from faulty first principles. There are bowl woks and flat-bottomed woks. We're not going to get anywhere discussing this issue if we can't even agree what a wok is.

[culturestate]

I lived in mainland China and Hong Kong for nearly a decade and had electric induction stoves in every apartment. Anecdotal evidence is, as ever, weak evidence.

[schrectacular]

Interesting. Maybe it's a north/south thing? I was in Beijing. Or maybe it was an affluence thing? I can totally imagine an indication stove being a status symbol. But they are far from ubiquitous and common in the country overall, of that I can assure you.

[culturestate]

I lived in Shanghai and Shenzhen, and I think it was mostly indicative of how new the building was. Anything built after ~2000 usually had the option of plumbed gas or electric, but in older buildings I saw a lot of those standalone bottled gas hobs with the purpose-built alcove in the kitchen.

In Hong Kong, it was really down to personal preference. My first apartment came with a normal resistive stove that the landlord swapped to an induction cooktop at my request, and that building (on HK island) didn't even have plumbed gas. It'd been disconnected during a renovation years before I moved in.

> But they are far from ubiquitous and common in the country overall, of that I can assure you.

I actually agree with you here, I was just making a point about the precariousness of using personal anecdata to support a position as broad as "people in China rarely have electric stoves." In a country that big, even the outliers make for an enormous group.

[schrectacular]

Indeed. I was responding to the claim that they are just as ubiquitous as in the US. Seems a bold claim given my personal experience. I would bet that they will become ever more popular in China as they push heavily toward electric infrastructure with new nuclear power plants and heavy investment in electric cars.

[arp242]

I know absolutely nothing about the type of stoves they use in China, or in the US for that matter, but remember that experiences may go out of date quicker than you'd might expect.

Before I moved to the UK I had literally never seen an electric stove in my life, much less used one, as gas was ubiquitous in the Netherlands. I'm sure you could find it, but it was rare. In the last few years things changed rapidly though, and when I moved back last year there were a number of apartments that had electric or induction) stoves.