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Julie and I tend to play things a little close to the vest. Before we moved to Hong Kong (mall capital of the world) the girls had not spent much time hanging out in malls. We screen their movies pretty closely. We don’t have a gaming system like the Wii or X-box. Neither girl has a Facebook account.
For those of you not familiar with Facebook, anybody can create a page of themselves on the internet where she lists her favorite foods and movies and what-not. People post pictures and updates on what’s going on in their lives. It’s a great way to get in contact with people you haven’t heard from in years. Facebook is used by people of all ages, but it is particularly popular with teens who can easily spend hours and hours every week on Facebook.
I actually created a Facebook account as a way to get the word out last spring that our house was available for rent. I rarely –almost never- go onto my Facebook account.
One of the other things you can do on Facebook is take surveys and join various groups such as the “I’m addicted to Diet Coke” or “The I hate the Twilight books” groups.
This morning, I opened my email account and saw that I had an invitation from one of my students to join a group that she and some friends had created on Facebook.
It’s called “Let Annika have Facebook.”
You can get more information (or join) at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=217305807449 .
“Let Annika Have Facebook” already has twenty-seven members/followers.
I have the distinct feeling that the inmates are trying to run the asylum.
Good thing I am impervious to peer pressure from thirteen-year-olds.
-Jack
I've been hoping to get a picture like this since we've been here.
Once or twice I thought I had it. On several ocassions I had stumbled upon a bride and groom getting photographed. But each time, my photographer intuition alarm told me somthing wasn't right: the groom was wearing tennis shoes; the photographer seemed way too young.
In retrospect, I think I was seeing photography students building their portfolios by using friends and classmates as models.
But today, I am convinced that I got the real thing. The bride was simply glowing way too much.
-JackOkay, true confession, maybe I miss the wedding photography just a little. But, the chance of me coming out of early retirement: none.
When we studied the Age of Immigration in my American History class, we took an in-depth look at the importation of Chinese men for use as laborers. We talked about how many of them were only able to visit China rarely. We talked about how many of the Chinese laborers sent almost all their money back to support family and sometimes whole villages. We talked about how a massive, single-gender culture grew up on the west coast because the Chinese workers were not allowed to bring over their wives. We talked about how the U.S. welcomed the cheap labor but didn’t want the arrangement complicated by things like wives, families, and offspring.
At no point did my students or I draw any sort of parallel between the importation of cheap Chinese male labor a century ago and the helper industry in Hong Kong today. (Hey, I know what side my bread is buttered on. I’m just a guest here.)
All six of the churches that Julie, the girls, and I have visited have a ministry for helpers including a Sunday afternoon service in the Filipino language.
Our school encourages families to consider getting a helper and will even help in the hiring process. For many American’s coming to Hong Kong to live and work, it is a strange and new idea to think of having a live-in domestic helper. For many people, the idea carries with it a stigma of classism that one person should live and work as another individual’s personal servant.
But from all appearance, expat families tend to get over these qualms pretty quickly. They get used to somebody doing all their cooking and cleaning and laundry pretty darn fast. In fact, I am convinced that a few of our new friends here may never move back to the States. It’s not the tropical climate or the low crime rate or the low taxes that will keep them here. They just may be in Hong Kong indefinitely for six little reasons: h-e-l-p-e-r. When you’ve gone six months without sweeping a floor, scrubbing a pan, or folding a bath towel, there just may be no going back.
In Hong Kong everybody seems to have a helper. I know of one family that has two helpers and a driver. Julie and I are one of the few families I know in which both parents work and that have school-aged children that does not have a helper. -Jack
Domestic helpers in Hong Kong are expected to work six days a week. By law, they have Sundays off. Helpers have very few possessions and certainly have no personal space to call their own other than the small bedrooms they occupy inside their employers’ homes. So on Sunday, the helpers –during all times of year and in all kinds of weather- congregate in any and all public spaces.
When our family is out and about on Sunday, we see helpers everywhere; after all, there are 250,000 of them that take to the street. Literally. They fill up parks, plazas, and the steps of nearly every municipal building. The business districts of Hong Kong are abuzz with activity Monday through Friday, but on Sunday, like most financial districts, they are ghost towns. These areas make a natural gathering place for helpers. In many instances the short, side streets –with the full blessing of the local authorities- are occupied by helpers who have camped out for the afternoon. They spread out their blankets in the middle of the street and have picnics on the blacktop with their fellow helpers. It is not uncommon to see a hundred-yard stretch of road filled with 200 or more helpers clustered in groups of five or ten.
It is really interesting to see hundreds –thousands- of women take to the streets and form little impromptu communities that have no men and children among them. We’ve seen groups of helpers playing music on their large radios, dancing, and having church-style sing alongs. It is not uncommon to see the women doing each other’s hair or giving each other a manicure.
There is talk in Hong Kong about expanding the pool of helpers to include women not only from Thailand, The Philippines, and Indonesia, but to start drawing women from mainland China as well. Based on the letters to the editor I read, this plan is very controversial for fear that it might be an way for Hong Kongers to get family members out of China and into Hong Kong. But the even bigger fear is that love might blossom between Hong Kong men and the imported Chinese helpers. Can’t have two governments sanctioning and running an inadvertent mail-order bride service now, can we?
Apparently, the temptation emanating from the Filipino helpers is negligible enough that it’s okay to invite in over 100,000 of them into the country. But if and when a helper does become pregnant, her employment is generally terminated immediately and she is sent back to her home country.-Jack
The domestic helper industry in Hong Kong is thriving. About one out of every 33 people in Hong Kong is an overseas helper. If you do the math, that’s about 250,000 foreign helpers in Hong Kong. Historically, the majority of helpers have been Filipino, but since we have been here, the South China Morning Post reports that the number of Filipino helpers has been eclipsed by the number of Indonesian helpers. The Indonesian helpers are easy to identify because most of them are Muslim and therefore they wear headscarves when they are out in public.
The helper industry is tightly regulated. If a helper’s contract expires and she does not have another gig lined up, she is sent back to her home country where she must get back in the helper cue.
The law in Hong Kong stipulates that domestic helpers must live with the family that employs them. By law, the helpers must have their own sleeping quarters. Many apartments in Hong Kong are built with an extra room with a helper in mind. Or to be more precise, a closet.
Julie and I have started looking at apartment in anticipation of moving off campus in the Spring. Some of the helper rooms are shockingly small. One apartment we saw had a helper room off the kitchen that was less than three feet by seven feet. It would have room for a mattress, a small t.v. and a clock and not much else. This is actually pretty standard.
Currently, we are living in an apartment that is actually two studio apartments joined together, therefore we have two kitchens. If we had a helper, she would use the second kitchen as her sleeping quarters. One of our neighbors is doing this and the helper claims to be thrilled. The sleeping space is bigger than almost every other helper she knows. Plus she has all that cabinet space.
Helpers are generally expected to cook, clean, do the laundry, grocery shop, and look after any young children. The minimum monthly pay set by the Hong Kong government is about US$550.00. Very few employers choose to pay more than the minimum. Most helpers send the majority of their earnings to families in their home country. Many helpers not only have parents, siblings, and husbands back home, many of them have children of their own. Some helpers are supporting extended families with the money they earn in Hong Kong.
In general, employing families pay for their helpers go home about once a year.
-Jack
Today marks our fifth month in Hong Kong.
I am sorry to report that after almost half a year in Hong Kong, the total number or words I have mastered in Cantonese: zero.
I am too much of a bum and it’s way too easy to get around here with English.
-Jack
When I lived in Japan in the late eighties, whenever I met someone new there was always an awkward moment while we decided how the introduction was going to be handled. To bow or to shake hands?I was an American kid living in Japan so I was inclined to do the Asia thing and bow. Invariably the Japanese person would do the American thing and extend his or her hand to shake mine. We usually ended up bowing and then shaking hands.
In Hong Kong, it’s not an issue. Nobody bows. At least not to me they don’t. Occasionally, from behind the counter at the electronics or the department store I might get a little head nod that could pass for a mini-bow.
But no full-fledge Richard-Chamberlain-in-Shogun style deep bows.
I kind of miss it. -Jack
Julie and I tend to play things a little close to the vest. Before we moved to Hong Kong (mall capital of the world) the girls had not spent much time hanging out in malls. We screen their movies pretty closely. We don’t have a gaming system like the Wii or X-box. Neither girl has a Facebook account.
