Every single day, Maria wakes up at 6 a.m., right at the crack of dawn. The first thing she does is to walk over to the big windows in our living room facing out to the mountains and breathes in the fresh air. She probably has the best record of what sunrise looks like out of anyone I know. She returns to her room to get ready. She splashes cold water on her face to jolt her body awake. She stares at herself in the mirror for a few seconds, examining the wrinkles on her face that have just started to appear. However, she doesn’t allow herself much indulgence—she quickly gets dressed in her daily uniform of T-shirt and sweatpants and puts the kettle on. My mother gets up for work at 6:15; by the time she gets out of bed, a cup of hot Oolong tea is waiting for her on the dining room table.
It is an inconvenient reality that back at home, in Hong Kong, most families, from middle class households living in council estates to casino tycoons in their mansions up on The Peak, employ domestic helpers, commonly called “maids”, who largely come from the Philippines. Behind the flashy lights of the neon signs and the resplendence of the skyscrapers lies a reality that is seldom addressed by both locals and onlookers from abroad. The domestic helper industry is so popular that there are scores of agencies that help in this process. They are widespread enough that most women in the country are able to contact one nearby if they want to seek work abroad. These agencies fly women over from their homes to these “halfway houses” in Hong Kong, where they would be groomed and prepped for interviews with potential employers, hoping that they would be impressive enough to be hired at the end of the day.
Maids are a formidable presence in Hong Kong, comprising five percent of the population. Every Sunday, which is usually when they have their weekly day-off, maids flock to Central, the most expensive district in Hong Kong and take over massive areas on walkways and parks and set up little cardboard compartments with their group of friends. It feels a little like the adult version of playing fort. Some of them are gossiping energetically in Tagalog; some of them just want to lie there and gaze up at the sky. The juxtaposition of their makeshift cardboard rooms against the gleaming metal towers is almost poetic—this is representative of just how out of place and disadvantaged the Filipino diaspora is in the bustling metropolis that is Hong Kong.
When I try to explain to my friends the fact that my family has a live-in maid who cooks and cleans for us, I can’t help but to be tripped up by the problematic connotations of this reality. Maids are legal aliens who are allowed into the homes of families in Hong Kong through a complex layering of work visas, contracts of employers and agencies, and most of all, societal norms. They are paid minimum wage—the lucky ones might receive bonuses for their good work. They work here, where the minimum wage is higher than that in the Philippines, in the hopes that the money they send back home can lead to a better life for their families. They do not have political agency or the right to own any property.
There is a deep-seated racial “master-labor’ power dynamic between the Chinese employers and Filipino maids in Hong Kong. Time after time, stories break in the news detailing the abuse and exploitation of domestic helpers around the city. Maids are essentially placed in a double bind. When they complain about discontent with their living or work conditions, their employers can threaten them with termination and send them back home. Some of this tension is also gendered. There are many instances where the matriarch of the household puts undue pressure on the maid because she feels threatened by the new female presence in the house, who in many cases develop a deeply intimate relationship with the children of the household. This is a normalized reality in the place I call home.
Grace Shiella A Estrada, the chairperson of the Progressive Labor Union of Domestic Workers in Hong Kong, said, “When I signed [the] contract, it seemed like I was also signing a verdict admitting I will be in prison for two years.”
A number of helpers have spoken of long working hours, lack of sleep and proper resting space, and poor diet as a result of the live-in arrangement. One of Maria’s friends had to be “on-call” 24 hours a day. Even when she was asleep in the deep hours of the night, the children of the household would go into her room and turn on the light, asking her to change their bedding because they had peed themselves.
When I was younger, it really confused me why Maria wanted to come to Hong Kong.
Being from a rural area just outside of Manila, the only source of income of Maria’s family was the small agriculture business her husband owned. She has two kids, RJ and Christian. Despite the fact that she received a bachelor’s degree in Hotel Management, she was unable to secure a job that could support her family because of the unfriendly job market in the Philippines. One of her cousins had told her to consider contacting an agency so that she could find work abroad, but she did not want to leave her family behind and deprive her children of the maternal care they would need. By conventional standards, they were doing okay. Her husband planted rice, which is never in short demand. They could even afford to buy farm animals; they had three chickens and two cows. Christian, the eldest son, even got into a competitive elementary school in the area.
I came to develop a very personal relationship with Maria. I called her Marithes, which was a combination of her first and middle name, Maria Theresa. I used to give her a long hug every night before I went to bed. One night, when I was ten, I went to Maria’s room to say goodnight. I saw that she had been crying. Her eyes were red and puffy. She told me that she really missed home. I asked her why she decided to leave. I felt her hold me more tightly—so tight that I could hear her heartbeat. She told me that in 2008, everything went awry. A pest destroyed the majority of rice crops Maria’s husband had grown that year. One of the cows wandered onto the road and was hit and killed by a passing truck. Their house was basically ruined by a flood, and the roof, made of metal plates, was caving in. They couldn’t afford to send Christian to the good school. But the final straw was when her husband attempted to hang himself. She had found him just as he was trying to muster all of his willpower to kick over the stool under him. She told me that she spent two hours after that crying with her husband on their bathroom floor. The next day, she took the bus into Manila to sign up with an agency.
I learned that it was never really a choice. It was the only thing she could do given the circumstances. It is discomforting to know that for many maids, this is the best career path for them, given the circumstances. At the crux of the issue is that they are involuntarily submitted to a career of subservience and lack of agency—many maids do not even have any exposure to resources that will advocate for their rights as workers and as human beings. Tragically, the organizations that do exist, such as the Filipino government, often neglect the rights of their own people, choosing ignorance as the more convenient route to deal with problems.
One thing I often forget about Hong Kong is how different cultural norms can be. Since leaving home at 13 for boarding school in England, and now college in America, I have been exposed to the Western standards of what’s acceptable and what’s not. Because my most formative years were spent in generally liberal-leaning areas in the West, I have come to think that these standards are the ones we ought to uphold. But how are we to judge a place like Hong Kong, where the vast majority of the population knows no different, and have just come to accept the domestic helper industry as it stands?
I like to think that we treat Maria well. She always has a place at our dinner table, and she gets twice the number of vacation days as the average maid. She has the liberty to experiment with her cooking—from time to time she serves us her favorite Filipino dishes such as Chicken Adobo or watermelon vinegar salad. She tells me all the time that she really likes working for us. I suppose I feel comforted by that reassurance.
The senior management team of the Nass has posted a response to this article, which can be found here.
Michael Yeung has published a follow-up to this article, which can be found here.
This is some of the weirdest language that the Nass has published. Like, I get it, the Nass loves things like this, where a rich person comes to a tentative, philosophical realization rendered through the life of an ordinary person.
But seriously?
The most infantilizing description of a maid, all from the charity of an uncertain but nonetheless caring rich boy — “I suppose I feel comforted by that reassurance” is really a line I wish I hadn’t read. Throughout the entire piece, this I-hope-I-treat-her-well, treat-her-better-than-others-would rhetoric really just sounds like slave rationalizations. I’m not saying it literally is, but the tone and sense of motive is so strikingly similar to a slave owner’s guilt.
The craziest thing is I don’t even feel the need to say “I wish this hadn’t been written,” because this is what the Nass represents, so I’m glad it’s here to self-affirm how I navigate the literary publications offered by Princeton. It horrifies me that this piece was vetted by editors before publication and didn’t raise a red flag. You can say that this article was written with best intentions, to show the day in the life of an unusual perspective, etc etc etc. This stands as it stands. My only hope is that this is fiction.
Anyway, if anyone asks me about if they should write for the Nass, I’m literally going to show them this article and have them be the judge. Thank you!
“I like to think that we treat Maria well” does not and cannot reconcile “I saw that she had been crying. Her eyes were red and puffy. She told me that she really missed home.”
how can you write this without a speck of guilt – please indicate that next time
this feels wrong and voyeuristic
“But how are we to judge a place like Hong Kong, where the vast majority of the population knows no different, and have just come to accept the domestic helper industry as it stands?”
Would anyone like to name an instance in history when this was also the case, the majority of citizens abided by the social norms of the day, and when laborers were also tied to a position that limited their social mobility and that was “never really a choice”? Perhaps when the laborer was also not allowed to own property? Imported from a foreign country?
I think we are allowed to negatively judge this aspect of Hong Kong’s culture. Is it really okay that they know no different? You cannot use a cultural norm to justify an act of wage slavery. It is especially cruel when families are destitute to the extent that they see no other option. You were complicit in an unjust system and that should elicit more guilt or remorse than this article reflects. I am uncomfortable by how cold and “newly woke” to the situation this reads.
i’m glad our school’s wealthiest have a space where they feel comfortable critically engaging with their family’s participation in the master labor dynamic
I knew about this labor dynamic previously, but hearing someone who goes to our school speak about it in a way which was enlightened enough to realize it was a problem but not enlightened enough to realize they were complicit in this system was horrifying. Especially the bit of when they tried to excuse it by saying that they thought their family treated the laborer well…. horrific.
People used to pride themselves on treating their slaves well too.
See this for a similar article:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/lolas-story/524490/
I’m a bit surprised about how quickly some have taken to equating the Hong Kong maid-employer to the American master-slave relationships. I agree that both are forms of unjust bondage, but it is not obvious to me that they are equivalent. From what I gather, the Hong Kong system is a recent phenomenon born mostly from economic disparity. On the other hand, the American system was based in a peculiarly dehumanizing form of racism, persisted for centuries, and has echoes that can still be felt today. It could very well be the case that these two forms of bondage are equally unjust, and in that case, Hong Kong employers would be just as morally culpable as American slave owners. However, that claim carries with it a worrying reciprocal burden; if the two systems are equally unjust, then American slave owners would only be as evil as Hong Kong maid employers. That could be a rather steep price to pay if Hong Kong maid employers are in fact not all evil.
Hong Kong and the US are rather different places and it is rather dangerous to automatically transfer social concepts between them. I suspect the relationship between Hong Kong and America’s forms of bondage deserves a far more nuanced appraisal than it has thus far been given.
I don’t think anyone said the Hong Kong labor dynamic is exactly the same as American slavery. The rhetoric, especially in this article, is similar — big difference. Sure, different countries different histories different cultures, etc etc. They both dehumanize, like this article.
A “nuanced appraisal” to the minutia of economic system theories–don’t think that’s necessary. By all means, tell me what has “thus far been” needed, don’t leave me at such a cliffhanger.
Thank you for treating me so well, Michael! I love getting up at 6am to make your mom tea before she goes off to her job in finance it means that I have more working hours during my day to earn minimum wage 🙂 I didn’t want to spend time with my kid anyway! Thanks!
“She tells me all the time that she really likes working for us. I suppose I feel comforted by that reassurance.”
We love justifying yourself like a slave owner.
I understand that the author is coming from a place with different norms and that because he grew up with this, it was normalized for him—but, wow. That’s where a responsible editor should have stepped in and really interrogated the intent, language, and purpose of this piece.
There is no self-reflection, no larger point about the domestic-worker industry. What are the power dynamics in this relationship? Who has agency here? Which parties have the resources, freedom, and education in this situation? Is it fucked-up for the author—a wealthy, foreign educated man—to say that his maid “doesn’t allow herself much indulgence,” when his family is the one that decides how much she gets to “indulge”? Is it fucked-up to describe “the juxtaposition of their makeshift cardboard rooms against the gleaming metal towers” as “poetic”? (Other words that come to mind: disgraceful, exploitative, tragic—their situation is not “poetic.”)
The author criticizes the Filipino government for “choosing ignorance” but fails to turn such a critical finger to himself or his family. If you see that other organizations are unable to address this, what are YOU doing to get involved?
“The vast majority of the population knows no different, and have just come to accept the domestic helper industry as it stands”—maybe that’s because they’re the ones benefitting from this. Why bother dismantling a system that allows you to have a cup of hot tea on the table by 6:15am? (Also, by “vast majority,” are you referring to the middle-class-and-up Hong Kong residents who employ domestic workers? Is that a “majority”?)
“She has the liberty to experiment with her cooking”—from time to time, you LET her cook different things, FOR your family? What freedom!
The author writes, “When they complain about discontent with their living or work conditions, their employers can threaten them with termination and send them back home,” but later says, “[Maria] tells me all the time that she really likes working for us,” without a hint of pushback or interrogation. Even if she really does like working for your family, would she ever say otherwise? Look at what you wrote earlier.
These are all questions an editor should have asked the author. This piece could have been an exploration of the author’s family’s complicity with an exploitative system (and the author’s attempts to challenge it or change something), a bare-bones look at Maria as an exploited human being (rather than an infantilized, romanticized figure who smiles happily as she works all day), and a discussion of the dynamics of the domestic-worker industry. This piece could have been the author’s wakeup call if it included an intensive, unflinching accounting for his family’s actions and the realities of Maria’s life. Even so, I have a hard time envisioning a version of this piece that does not read like a self-apology and shoulder-shrugging reassurance.
The author’s family did not abuse Maria and gave her an income greater than she could earn back home. They do not deserve criticism.
That said, the system of HK domestic workers is prone to an unhealthy power dynamic between employer and employee. This needs to be changed by the HK government, which is only possible with extensive lobbying on behalf of the domestic workers who will not lobby themselves. The HK government deserves criticism. The family does not.
In my opinion, the system should not be eradicated but rather improved. As has already been said, the system is an economic improvement but this is not enough as far as legal rights are concerned. All in all, well done to the author for bringing to light this controversial issue.
Perfect is the enemy of the good. The life of a domestic worker in Hong Kong is economically better than the life they had back home, and it is the family of the author of this article that made the family of their maid better off. Yes, the situation is far from perfect, but it is an improvement.
For as long as economic inequality between countries exists, there will be an incentive for people to move to more developed countries in pursuit of a higher income. The author’s family gave Maria this income.
That said, the legal rights of such workers are not sufficiently adequate and should be improved by the government. Until this happens, the situation will remain an economic improvement––far from the ridiculous comparisons with the transatlantic slave trade.
You clearly saw the word “slave” in the comments, ignored their arguments, and came up with a weirdly passive defense for the article. No one is arguing what you are saying they are arguing.
My reference to the misguided comparison between HK domestic workers and slaves was only a passing mention. You have not addressed my main argument, that the author’s family are responsible for an economic improvement in Maria’s life. Do you deny that?
I don’t deny economic improvements. Your main argument is that we should critique the HK government as the larger factor at play, which is true. But I find it wrong that you see this as mutually exclusive: we should not critique how an individual participates and instead we should look to the grander bureaucratic issue. Yours words imply that a lobbying aspect is more important and necessary, but equally important to critique is the language produced from these greater issues. People are calling this author’s language savior-like and slave-owner-like. I am (and others are) critiquing how the author makes us understand Maria as a person. Your argument is founded if only you did not dismiss the relevancy of individual critique.
I feel inclined to agree with those who are saying that Michael and his family should not be taking the heat of the criticism. The fact that they provide income to Maria and her family, which is what she was looking for, is a positive to her life. The fact that they treat her well (I agree that this language is bad – but how else could you word it?) and that Michael seems to have a personal and deep connection with her makes me almost angry at how deeply you all are cutting into the lives of these people who are simply paying for a maid, and especially into Michael, who is surely struggling with the guilt of this situation and the knowledge that the system is exploitative while also being the one who interacts with Maria and sees her happy, if obviously still missing her family. If there is anything to be angry about, it isn’t this family, it is the system that forces women like Maria to go to Hong Kong to find work like this. If Michael’s family didn’t provide this for her, where would her and her family be? In a perfect world, this wouldn’t happen, but this isn’t a perfect world. I’m glad this article was written and posted, despite the fact that the language is somewhat insensitive and uncritical, because I previously had no idea that this system existed in Hong Kong, and now I do.
i think a lot of the comments are about the language. it’s definitely eye-opening. it just should have been critical of the situation language-wise.