[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.