The trouble with ayi
We have a cleaning lady. Well, we have an "ayi" which is the Chinese word used for any female house-hold help (as well as the word used for "mother's younger sister" and "general honorific for a woman of your mother's generation"). At first the middle-class guilt gave me some twinges - I was even caught cleaning the flat the night before the ayi was due to come so she wouldn't see just how filthy it really was - but my natural lethargy and my husband's common sense combined to deal with that problem quickly. (Though I did feel a return of the internal cringing the day I was reading this article while the ayi mopped the floor around my computer desk. Not enough to stop me either reading the article or employing the ayi, though.)
The guilt isn't such a big thing here in Shanghai. In reality anyone of our income - local or expat - is expected to have an ayi. It is considered to be totally normal, and of positive social value as it provides jobs for part of Shanghai's army of migrant workers.
The problem is: we have a cleaning lady who can't clean. Honestly, she doesn't have the first clue about how to clean anything, doesn't have any inclination to learn, doesn't have the imagination to realise there could be a better way to do things, doesn't have any curiosity about how anything outside of her normal daily world-view works, and doesn't have the will to copy any new practice she is shown. We've been encouraging her to use dettol in the floor-mopping water for about six months now (especially as she always starts to mop the floors by the cat litter-trays and then works outwards). The lesson hasn't stuck, which means that unless one of us was at home to supervise her work, we will be greeted on our return by the all-pervasive stink of cat urine.
It's really hard to explain why we continue to work with her. I think it might be: one part apathy, a few parts of middle-class guilt, and the fact that she's a nice person who does try in her own limited way and who we can't quite bear to fire from her job.
She even told V once that she doesn't actually need to have this job. Her only reason for working in the city is that if she stays in the village she ends up playing mah jhong twenty four hours a day. Thus, we continue to use her. (But if guests are coming to visit I'll get my OCD husband to do the housework.)
The guilt isn't such a big thing here in Shanghai. In reality anyone of our income - local or expat - is expected to have an ayi. It is considered to be totally normal, and of positive social value as it provides jobs for part of Shanghai's army of migrant workers.
The problem is: we have a cleaning lady who can't clean. Honestly, she doesn't have the first clue about how to clean anything, doesn't have any inclination to learn, doesn't have the imagination to realise there could be a better way to do things, doesn't have any curiosity about how anything outside of her normal daily world-view works, and doesn't have the will to copy any new practice she is shown. We've been encouraging her to use dettol in the floor-mopping water for about six months now (especially as she always starts to mop the floors by the cat litter-trays and then works outwards). The lesson hasn't stuck, which means that unless one of us was at home to supervise her work, we will be greeted on our return by the all-pervasive stink of cat urine.
It's really hard to explain why we continue to work with her. I think it might be: one part apathy, a few parts of middle-class guilt, and the fact that she's a nice person who does try in her own limited way and who we can't quite bear to fire from her job.
She even told V once that she doesn't actually need to have this job. Her only reason for working in the city is that if she stays in the village she ends up playing mah jhong twenty four hours a day. Thus, we continue to use her. (But if guests are coming to visit I'll get my OCD husband to do the housework.)