Maid in Hong Kong part 3 of 3

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