{"id":479,"date":"2013-11-24T05:00:30","date_gmt":"2013-11-24T13:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/?p=479"},"modified":"2016-07-11T19:35:18","modified_gmt":"2016-07-12T02:35:18","slug":"live-in-maids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/china\/live-in-maids\/","title":{"rendered":"Live-in Maids"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Nellie<\/a>

Nellie and the girls<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0What I learned from Nellie<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Until we moved to the Philippines, I\u2019d never hired anyone to clean my house or mow my lawn; never even considered paying someone to wash my windows or paint my fingernails.<\/p>\n

And here we were, touching down at Manila International Airport, about to start a new life in a country where most middle-class people hired maids. I\u2019d have to get used to a whole new way of life. I hadn\u2019t given it much thought though yet. I\u2019d been too busy selling our house, organizing a yard sale, packing, saying goodbye\u2014and, oh yes, giving birth to our third daughter.<\/p>\n

\"airport<\/a>Luckily my husband\u2019s new boss and his wife did give some thought to our situation. As we staggered across the blazing hot tarmac with two little girls, a baby and various bags full of diapers and toys, they were waiting for us just inside the glass doors with their own maid and their maid\u2019s cousin. Nellie.<\/p>\n

Nellie was young and lively and smart. And she\u2019d worked as a maid before. She knew what to expect.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

The next morning she moved into the maid\u2019s room attached to our apartment and went straight to work washing the breakfast dishes while I nursed the baby. It was nice that I didn\u2019t have to tell her what to do since I wasn\u2019t comfortable giving orders. When the baby finished eating, I burped her, put her in the crib and picked up my purse. \u201cI\u2019m going out for groceries,\u201d I said. Just like that\u2014no scramble for a babysitter, no figuring how to bring all three kids with me. A maid could be a real bonus, I decided, especially with three children under the age of four.<\/p>\n

When I returned, it was almost lunchtime. While I checked on the girls and changed the baby\u2019s diaper, Nellie unloaded the groceries, prepared a simple lunch and set the table with three plates. Just three.<\/p>\n

\u201cWon\u2019t you join us?\u201d I asked. How could we live in the same apartment and not eat at the same table?<\/p>\n

She shook her head. \u201cNo, ma\u2019am.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy not?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

She looked at me sideways. That was not how things were done. Besides, she\u2019d already<\/p>\n

\"Fely\"<\/a>

Fely<\/p><\/div>\n

chosen an appropriate place to eat, at the little table on the balcony. We all need our space.<\/p>\n

During that first year, Nellie and later her brother Samson and their sister Fely taught me a\u00a0lot about relating to servants. I learned to live in the middle ground the relationship demanded, between the intimacy of people living in the same house and the privacy of our separate lives. The middle ground between too friendly and standoffish, between over-bearing and overly-permissive. (See post by Mindanao Bob<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Servants in old China<\/b><\/h4>\n

\"E.'s<\/a>My husband, on the other hand, was at ease living with maids from the get-go. He\u2019d grown up with them. Back in China, his grandmother had one young maid who had been given up by her parents. “In times of great floods and famine,” my husband explained, “a peasant sometimes has no choice other than to sell his child. My grandmother took in such a little girl. She brought her into our house, fed and clothed her and gave her light work to do. When the girl reached a marriageable age, she provided her with a dowry and found her a husband.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inequality, at home and abroad<\/b><\/p>\n

As for our family, we stayed in the Philippines for fifteen years. Our live-in maids dusted and swept, they washed clothes, cooked dinner and babysat. After a while, it stopped feeling strange to eat at separate tables. We developed a relationship that was close, but appropriate. That\u2019s the best one can do, I suppose, in a world of unequal opportunities.<\/p>\n

A world that still exists. These days, when I pass a maid in the hallway of a hotel or motel, I still feel uneasy\u2014not that she will change my bed when I leave, but that she doesn\u2019t expect to be acknowledged. Sometimes I stop to chat for a moment. But that doesn\u2019t change the facts.<\/p>\n

If you have any comments or insights on this topic, please share them in the comment box below.<\/p>\n

\"my<\/a><\/p>\n

(To keep up with my weekly posts, you may click on the orange “subscribe” button at the top of the page.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Next week’s post: Nursing with Books<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0What I learned from Nellie Until we moved to the Philippines, I\u2019d never hired anyone to clean my house or mow my lawn; never even considered paying someone to wash my windows or paint my fingernails. And here we were, touching down at Manila International Airport, about to start a new life in a country […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,29,155,148],"tags":[120,122,1314,1315,1316],"class_list":["post-479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-culture","category-family","category-philippines","tag-getting-used-to-having-live-in-maids","tag-inequality","tag-moving-to-the-philippines","tag-relating-to-servants","tag-servants-in-old-china"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Kn1e-7J","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5344,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/philippines\/everyone-has-a-maid-or-two-or-three\/","url_meta":{"origin":479,"position":0},"title":"“Everyone” Has a Maid (or Two or Three).","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"July 31, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0Back home, I was an independent woman. 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