"We’re very good to our help."

It is not a completely unknown fact that servants, drivers, maids, nannies and other so-called “helpers” are easily available in Hong Kong. In addition, this help is extremely cheap. The Hong Kong government requires that you pay a monthly salary of around $3500 Honk Kong dollars to a live-in maid, or “amah.” For those of you unwilling or unable to do the math, that works out to roughly $500 US per month. Room and board is, of course, expected.

Most of the “help” comes from the surrounding, and impoverished, nations. They are Filipino or Indonesian, predominantly. Occasionally you find other nationalities doing this type of work, but it is rare.

Most of the girls come to Hong Kong for the sole purpose of saving money to send home to their families. They don’t usually have husbands or children themselves and if they are extremely lucky, then someone will marry them while they are here. On any given weekend night, you can see young, attractive Asian women on dates with older, decidedly unattractive, western men (usually in their late 40s to early 60s and either fat or balding). In their own respective countries, these men would be hard-pressed to find such accommodating women. Here, they are practically rock stars.

A young man in my Mandarin courses from Boston tells me that it’s terrifically easy to pick up a date. To the point that it’s actually verging on being hassled. And I have seen the eyes of hungry women devouring my own husband. Alas, we don’t wear wedding rings, which leaves his marital status open to interpretation.

What I really want to commentate on is the fact that most tai-tais (or wives) treat these women like disposable garbage bags. They are there to clean up and that’s it. Women here are constantly complaining about their “help.” Some of them, as gleaned from several reports in the papers here, even go so far as to burn them with irons, underpay them, and slap them around. Talking with some of the girls who provide this “help,” it becomes clear that they are frightened of falling into the wrong hands. For most, this means a traditional Chinese family. Specifically, mainlanders.

Mainland Chinese women have a notorious reputation here among Filipinos and Indonesians. They are not to be trusted with their help. They have mad tempers and throw hissie fits on gargantuan scales. Now, this many just be rumor, but let me tell you a little – and painfully true – story.

Across the hall lives a Chinese family. They have a live-in amah and two horrible little dogs (forever yapping and peeing in the hallways). When we first moved in, I always heard the tinkling of a bell, like on a dog collar, which is how I knew when the amah was taking the dogs out for a walk. (Sidebar – I have NEVER seen the owners take the dogs out.) One day, while riding in the elevator with her, I noticed that I still heard the tinkling of a bell. No dogs. I looked down at her wrist and she was wearing a DOG BELL. When I asked, she told me that it was so her employers wouldn’t be surprised by her sudden appearance. I was shocked, and horrified, and slightly amused, by the story.

Now, I’m sure that some people actually treat these women well. I know that the people I know do. However, it makes me wonder just how far from indentured servants these girls really are. I mean, the size of their rooms is so small you can barely sit down in them. And our maid’s room, I am informed, is BIG by comparison.

Trying to supplement her income, one of the more outspoken maids was just jailed for selling a $10 HK lunchbox in the park. To the government’s credit, it didn’t prosecute her, just arrested her. And the rigmarole that these girls have to go through just to obtain a visa to permit them to sometimes become abused, is amazing. If there was an easy way to get into the country illegally, I’m sure that Hong Kong would have a happy Filipino base. Just like all of the Spanish maids in NYC that are making a bundle charging $60 US an hour and getting paid in cash-ola. Viva la resistance!

Long live capitalism and an unequal system. Lord knows I can’t iron my own clothes. If I had to make a living like that, I’d have starved by now. As an amah, I’d suck.

A Word about the Weather

No commentary on living in Southeast Asia would be complete without a segment on the weather. Living most of my life in the United States and traveling extensively, there is one thing I know for certain: everyone is obsessed about the weather. Not only is it a centerpiece of polite conversation (I think it might be the number one topic covered by strangers in elevators around the world), but we seem to be truly interested and invested in it.

Probably because so much of our lives depend on it. Growing up in farm country, I can tell you that those who work on the land watch the skies with an intensity matched only by meteorological and storm freaks. Here in Asia, the weather is so intense and unpredictable that it is almost personified. It feels powerful and has the ability to make even the most self-important of us humble.

My apartment building lies at the base of Victoria Peak, nestled quite comfortably in between the lush, green hills and the central part of the city and the harbor. From here we have a bird’s eye view, literally, over the entire area. And while that is calming and comforting on most occasions, during a storm it can be intense.

The first time I experienced a storm in Hong Kong, it woke me up out of a deep sleep. This is saying something as I have been known to sleep through someone banging on my door for fifteen minutes at a stretch. Unfortunately, having lived through the WTC experience, in my sleepy haze I honestly thought that one of the large highrises downtown had suffered a hit. The explosion sound was so loud that it sounded as if it were everywhere all at once, both outside on the peak and inside our bedroom. Flashes of lightening were so bright that you could not directly look out of the window. It was the most impressive thing I have ever seen.

And then it occurred to me: If this is a normal storm, then what is a typhoon going to be like?

The weather reports are notoriously inaccurate here. But the Hong Kong Observatory does have the latest high-tech equipment for tracking storms and does a fairly good job at getting the information out. There is a system here.

• Amber rain means don’t bother with your umbrella because it’s practically useless. The rain will laugh at you as it splashes up from the rivers in the road and blows up under your flimsy protection. About the only thing that stays dry is your hair, which isn’t much consolation.
• Black rain means so much rain it turns dark, but it’s still “safe” to be out and about if you so choose.
• Typhoon Level 3 means that a typhoon is in the area and Hong Kong is on the alert. In other words, the typhoon is casing out the joint and trying to decide if it’s worth it. But it still hasn’t made up its mind, so everyone still goes to work.
• Typhoon Level 8 is an emergency situation. When it is hoisted, all businesses shut down and people start going home immediately. Ferries to the outlying islands stop completely. So do most trains and the MTR subway trains. The city is battening down the hatches – literally. At this point, people with balconies have to drag everything in and everyone with large windows is urged to stay far away from them throughout the storm. Yeah, right, like most people aren’t going to watch this thing happen.

We had our first Level 8 warning about two weeks ago. Nothing happened. At all. It didn’t really even rain.

At the last minute, like a finicky lover, the typhoon decided we weren’t worth all the fuss and shifted on to a new amour. My husband was sorely disappointed; he wanted to see the damn thing after all the fuss. As someone who has witnessed a tornado tear through a corn field, I wasn’t so sure we missed anything we really wanted to see. But I’m sure we’ll get another chance.

In this hot, humid environment, the sun and the rain play games with each other. A sudden rain shower is often followed by brilliant sunshine. Even weirder, at some points I can look out of my window and see sunshine across the harbor when it is raining on us. But it’s not as bad as people make it out to be – the wet heat. You get used to it and it starts to feel normal. At this point, I’m fairly sure that 25 degrees C is going to feel like the tundra to me and that Level 3 will become old hat.

This is China – are you sure?

This past weekend, we went to Shenzhen to a golf resort called Mission Hills. If anyone reading this is a golf enthusiast, you will already be aware of exactly what and where this place is. For everyone else, let me explain.

Mission Hills is a behemoth golf-complex located just across the border from Hong Kong in a place called Shenzhen, in Guangdong Province. It has 180 holes, or 10 full courses. It’s like Disneyland for golfers.

The thing about golf courses is that they all look alike, really. If you were standing smack in the middle of the photo above, would you have any idea where you were in the world? The markers are all the same; you could literally be anywhere in the world that has a golf course. In other words, you would never know that this is China just by looking at the surroundings. There are, however, other tell-tale signs.

First, to get there you have to cross the border into China from Hong Kong. Although Hong Kong is officially a part of China, there is still a heavily patrolled border crossing. Here’s how it works:

1. You take a cab from downtown Hong Kong to the main border crossing for Shenzhen. Once there, you get out of the cab and get on a yellow bus. The yellow bus is for border crossing only.

2. You show your HK ID card to the border people, then they ask for your passport. They look at your Chinese visa and then stamp everything you have except for your forehead. Although sometimes I think that they would if they could.

3. You get back on the yellow bus and go to the Chinese side and their border patrol. Here, they look at your visa, take your entry card, and stamp everything again. I have noticed that they look at you and your passport more intently here, as if looking for something. Being an American, I wonder if they are just making a point with me in particular.

4. You get out of the immigration and find a cab. Here’s where the real fun begins.

Chinese people have got to be the worse drivers on the planet. No, really. I have been to enough countries to have a fair stab at this one. I have sat in the back of a taxi, cruising down the Champs Elysee at warp speed, while the driver watched a portable television in the front seat. I have watched helplessly as my Italian taxi driver almost killed 8 pedestrians. So, in other words, I know what I am talking about and Chinese drivers are the worst I have ever SEEN.

The rules of the road are this: do whatever you want when you want and for God’s sake don’t even think about using a turn signal – that’s cheating. Also, there are no lanes. Oh, they are marked, but they don’t actually count. There are no lanes in China, just hints of them. Philosophically, I might agree. But when you are whizzing down the road in a ton of metal, it’s a different story. There weren’t enough seat belts in the world for me and I was gripping the seat so hard that I had to pry myself off it at the destination.

At the golf resort, there are mostly, of course, Asians. Which is another way you can tell you are in China. And everyone has color coordinated golf outfits on, with matching shoes. They take this game seriously, people.

We had an event-filled weekend which began with a golf-cart accident and ended with one of our group member’s balls flying into the calf of another’s group’s caddy. (I should insert here that ALL players MUST have a caddy and that they are ALL women. I’ll leave the judgment on this to you, as I have my own feminist take on it which amounts to indignation. You should see these tiny women schlepping huge golf bags while the mostly-Asian men ignore them.) At one point, Barry even starting to throw clubs as if we were in a martial arts movie. After I missed a putt, I threw my club in imitation and cracked up the usually stern caddies. At which point, I whispered in Chinese that my husband was a little boy for the day. That sent them over the edge.

It’s nice to know that, like golf courses, people are similar everywhere.

Inaugural Post

Hello, and welcome to Asia as seen through the eyes of a thirty-two year old American woman.

First and foremost, this is not going to be a place where I drone endlessly on about my cats, my job, my boyfriend, my family life or anything else. Hopefully, and with any luck, there will be no droning at all. Whining, from time to time, no doubt, but nothing boring or unnecessary.

Let me start off by saying that I am incredibly lucky. I have an amazing opportunity in the palm of my hand. Here I am, living in Hong Kong, a truly world-class city by any standards. I am in the heart of Southeast Asia. Everything around me is new. The food, the people, the music, the language, the sights, the sounds, the smells. Everything.

In a lot of ways, it is like being reborn.

It’s the chance of a lifetime, the thing most people in their thirties and forties dream about. A chance to have a do-over, where you can reset the game of life and reexperience it from a fresh vantage point. Not that this is a particularly easy thing to do.

Since I have been here, I have found that there is nothing like moving to a foreign country to get all your personal demons to come out and play. However, there’s a lesson here, many of them. And if you are patient enough with me, I can take you on a vicarious ride through the most interesting places on earth. And if you are patient enough to read through my blubbering, you just might learn some new things yourself. Or, at the very least, hopefully you will be entertained.

I plan on doing a lot of traveling, and of course, I will be bringing along my digital camera to document what I see and do.

I’m not the first person to relocate to a new country. I’m aware of this. Also, I’m not the first person to experience these things either. But, using my long lost journalistic skills, maybe this won’t be that monotonous of a journey for either one of us.

And, hey, at least it’s not another kids site. I promise, I won’t even post any pictures of my kittens, adorable as they are. Because I realize that no one else on this earth is going to find them half as interesting as I do. And, hey, that’s okay.