Last week, after a long flight from Beijing, via Seattle, I found myself in a hotel room near the Los Angeles International Airport. I was there to attend a conference.
When I got to my room, I spent several minutes hunting in vain for "the cockpit," the console (so ubiquitous in Chinese hotel rooms) which has switches that turn the lights and television on and off. It was nowhere to be found.
Once the initial confusion wore off, I had an idea — check the lamps directly. Maybe I can just turn them on and off using their own switches. Sure enough, that worked.
What a novel idea!
Like most others who read this post, I can relate! Having just spent five nights in a Chinese hotel, I switched every switch in the console just assuming all of the bulbs had burned out until I remembered to check by the front door to see if the electricity was turned on. (In this hotel the room key didn’t trigger the electricy, they had a separate “key” by the front door that needed to be inserted to turn on the power.)