red and black laundry hung out to dry on street in Shanghai

It struck me that in Shanghai laundry is everywhere, except the strict business area along the riverfront.

Otherwise, in any halfway residential area, laundry is hung out to dry. Not only on balconies and from windows, but publicly between two poles on the sidewalk.
bed sheets hung on phone box in Shanghai
They still have phone booths in Shanghai, and sure enough, they also serve for airing bedding.
laundry hung out on sidewalk in Shanghai
Parking signs can also be useful for putting up a laundry line.
laundry in Shanghai
Why string up a laundry line when a telephone wire serves just as well?
Shanghai tenement with laundry hung out
Here a typical apartment complex in the Hongkou district of Shanghai. It almost looks like little children have been hung out to dry (especially 4th set of windows from the left, 2nd row from the top.)
If you can’t hang the laundry out the window, you open the window wide.
If you ain’t got a line, you use a pole.
Even in a picturesque centuries-old Chinese garden in Suzhou, laundry will peek through a latticed window in the garden wall.
bedding set out to dry on Shanghai sidewalk
Taking a break from all that laundry – bedding being aired on a street in the French Concession.