The Help

I've wanted to write this post for a long time, but felt kind of awkward about it.  I wasn't sure what to say, and while Michael and I had toyed with the idea, we hadn't yet done it on a permanent basis, so I figured there wasn't much to say yet on the subject.   However, with both my and Michael's hours being pretty unpredictable as of late, and the dustballs and grease sneaking up on us to the point of being downright embarrassing, it seemed time to seriously consider the matter and do what everyone else does: hire a helper.  And so we come to this post.

This is a story about Hong Kong (and places like Singapore, Bali, the UAE, etc.) that is acknowledged but not really discussed or written.  Practically everyone I know here within a certain income (whether Asian or white) has a "helper", which is the term that Hong Kong-ers use to describe their maid/baby-sitter/housekeeper/cleaner/pet-walker and cook.  When I confessed at a work party that I didn't have a helper, not even part-time, everyone looked at me like I was daft.  One person shot me a horrified look and asked, "Do you like doing laundry?!  Don't you have better things to do with your time?" 

The helpers are the equivalent of Hong Kong's migrant laborers.  They are all women, and they are almost all Filipina.  They leave behind their husbands and their children in the Philippines and come to Hong Kong under the formal title "domestic helper".   (There is an entire floor in the Hong Kong Immigration headquarters dedicated to processing their paperwork).   They work for very low wages.  Hourly rates for part time helpers generally run about HK$50 to HK$60 an hour, which is less than US$8/hour.

There are a LOT of them, but you don't realize just how many there are until you take a walk in Hong Kong on Sunday.  Sundays generally are the helpers' day off.  The women sit on cardboard boxes lining the streets, pathways, parks, eating, chatting, watching movies, playing cards, and giving each other manicures and pedicures.

I don't know any expat families with children here that don't have a full-time helper (or two).  I don't know of anyone with a pet who does not have a helper.  I know plenty of couples without children that have helpers.   I've even been privy to conversations where parents admit they are considering having another child, or just had another child, because helpers "make it so much easier."  Some helpers are part-time, which means they come to your apartment once or twice a week, usually to clean.  Other helpers are full-time, which means they live with you.  Often, a part-time helper is someone else's full-time helper.

So I ask you, is this wrong?  I have plenty of friends in the U.S. who hire cleaning services to come in and clean their apartments / houses once a week or once every two weeks.  There are definitely families in the U.S. that hire nannies, either part time or full time.  I'm sure many of them are illegal immigrants facing a lot of the same problems in the U.S.

I'm still not sure why all of this seems so much more offensive to me here.  Maybe it's because the use of helpers is so pervasive, discussed so casually, and taken for granted.  And the job description is really whatever the employer wants -- it's not unheard of for helpers to mix their employer's face creams and masks, or to wait in line at H&M at four in the morning for the release of a hot designer collection.  It's also not unheard of to have the helper climb up to her "bed" (really some slat of wood with a thin bedroll on it) which is built on top of the washing machine and dryer.  With the typically poor working conditions and the meager pay, there is no way to avoid the fact that this is exploitation.  And the most disturbing thing is that it's not even questioned here.  Everyone here is complacent with the status quo.  Everyone is eager to have a helper.  I cannot help but recall Kathryn Stockett's novel and feel distaste for the whole thing.

While I was dealing with my conflicted feelings, my family friend's helper came to clean for us for the first time this past weekend.  She is a really lovely, energetic woman whose son is only four years younger than me (he is back in the Philippines).  She has worked all over the world as a domestic helper - in Lebanon, in the UAE, in Taiwan and in Hong Kong.  As we were chatting about her life and her impressions of the households she had previously worked, one of her simple statements really struck me: "I will never forget Taiwan because the sweat of Taiwan brought me my house."