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Hong Kong Outlook

The Changing Face of HK's Servant Class

By VIVIAN CHIU


様変わりする香港の使用人事情

香港の家庭は共働きが多いため、地方の中国人女性を使用人として雇ってきました。しかし使用人の仕事はきついため、最近は、ビルの清掃やファーストフード店の仕事を好む女性が多く、香港の家庭では、代わりにフィリピン人を雇うケースが増えています。

Ever since I was born, my family has had a Chinese servant. In the past, Hong Kong families had the luxury of hiring Chinese servants who could cook delicious Chinese food. Now they are becoming rare, almost all being replaced by Filipino maids. Older, little-educated Chinese women in Hong Kong would rather work as cleaning ladies in office buildings or fast-food restaurants than be servants, which is just too demanding a job. Only the richest families in Hong Kong are able to retain a Chinese servant.

I remember my servant, Ah Mui, who bathed me, took me to school and toilet-trained me. She is from Shunde in China's Guangdong Province. In her home town, there was a peculiar tradition before 1949 called sorhei. Shunde women who went through the sorhei ritual brushed up their hair and renounced marriage. They were strong-minded women who refused to be oppressed by a husband or mother-in-law. They led independent lives, traveling to Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore to work for Chinese families as servants. They are renowned for their white tops and black trousers, their superior cooking ability and cleanliness.

Though Ah Mui is not a sorhei woman, she could steam fish that melted in your mouth and could boil nutritious Cantonese soup. What's more, she hand-washed all our clothes. Since my mother detests housework, we hired Ah Mui for more than 15 years. She had the highest status in our household. Over the years, the big Sony television in the living room became her property. Sometimes when my father was watching the television, she would switch to another channel and he had to go to the bedroom to watch the smaller television.

Ah Mui worked for us for as long as she could but she was getting old (she's 84 now) and limped so it was difficult for her to walk to the market to buy food. Now she's living in an elderly home. When I visit her, we talk about the old days. Her favorite story is of how she once found American dollar bills in my father's trousers when she washed the clothes. She ironed the bills dry and returned them to my father, not one missing.

After I went to university in America, Ah Mui retired and my mother hired another Chinese servant. My mother was very resourceful and found a part-time Chinese servant who was a cleaning lady in our building.

Ah Gum is a good, honest woman. But her cooking is terrible. When she saw that we didn't finish the food, she would ask: "The food doesn't taste good?" We always lied: "It tastes fine!" Ah Gum didn't work long even though we paid her HK$4,500 (¥77,715) a month. She was always ill and gave up her job after three years.

When we don't have a servant, we eat out at restaurants. After getting sick of always eating outside, my mother had to find a servant again. She found a part-time servant from Shanghai. She can cook Shanghai cuisine, which is perfect for us because we are a Shanghai family. Actually she is my grandmother's servant and we have to return her to my grandmother by the Chinese New Year. After she leaves, my mother will have no option but to hire a Filipino maid.

There are now around 180,000 Filipino maids working in Hong Kong, and the minimum wage, set by the government, is HK$3,860 (¥66,662) a month. They have been coming to Hong Kong since the early 1980s. Lucy Cabacungan, a university graduate from the Philippines, is a domestic servant in Hong Kong. She is the oldest daughter in her family and has seven brothers. She graduated in 1981 with a bachelor of science degree in agriculture.

"I have a university degree, but I don't earn much in the Philippines," Cabacungan said. "I want to earn more money to support my family and brothers who are still in school."

Cabacungan, 35, first worked in a hospital in the Philippines as a medical records clerk but her salary was meager. In 1990 she came to Hong Kong where she could make more money. She is now working for a family of four.

Every day she gets up at 8 a.m., cleans the house and takes Gar-wing, 5, to school. Then she goes to buy food at the market and cooks lunch for her mistress and the other son. After they finish lunch they go to work. Then Lucy picks up Gar-wing, gives him lunch and helps him do homework. From 5 to 6 p.m., she takes Gar-wing to play at a children's park nearby. This is the only hour when she can relax and chat with other Filipino maids. She cooks dinner, washes the dishes and goes to sleep at 10 p.m. She and Gar-wing sleep in the same room.

"I'm always homesick, thinking of my parents and brothers," Cabacungan said. "But I enjoy my job here even though I have to work very hard."

Her employer, Mrs. Lau, said because both she and her husband have to work, they need a maid to look after Gar-wing.

"Lucy's cooking is not very good, but she is a decent woman," Lau said. "She treats Gar-wing well."

In Hong Kong, most wives and husbands work to support the family, (a large chunk of their salaries pays for the mortgage of their home) and have little time for their children.

"We can't cope without a maid," Lau said.


Shukan ST: Jan. 9, 1998

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