We are in the process of recruiting a maid, known there as a “helper” for our house in Hong Kong. With our impending empty nest it’s debatable whether we really need anyone to clean or cook for us really, but that does seem to be the prevailing culture all over Asia. It is an odd idea for those brought up in relatively egalitarian Europe that there should be specific people dedicated to doing the repetitive chores that we find onerous and dull, but people in my Indian family and friends circles routinely employ (generally) women to wash their dishes and clean their apartments. We do have a cleaner and a gardener here but even that fills me with middle-class guilt. Perhaps it’s because I’m the perpetual outsider but I’ve always found it hard to get my head around the concepts of social stratification and “your station,” in life. I’ve never really understood how some people can think that they are automatically better than others and treat them with contempt because they do a different job or live in a larger house or have more money. I have seen that having someone around to help with chores frees women in patriarchal societies up to pursue their careers. If only I had had more support and help around the house or child-care fifteen years ago when my children were young, perhaps I would have been able to pursue my career more fully. I’m often asked what I do for a living when I visit India and women I meet there generally find it difficult to understand that I don’t have a job. It’s unbelievable to any of them that here in Europe we have to do our own housework. Europe is seen as a hardship posting by the oil company families who travel around between Brazil and Indonesia and the Middle East and China. Suddenly they find that they must cook their own meals, mop their own floors and look after their own children, and when I lived in Paris I knew one or two who had brought their helpers from developing countries with them. Several people I know who’ve lived as expatriates in countries where domestic help is the norm have suggested that this is a normal feeling for Europeans: we feel guilty about making someone else do our work for us so we help them. It does seem that the prospective employee we interviewed on our shonky Skype connection currently has a long and fraught daily routine with three small children, a cat and a dog so our gig will be a lot easier by comparison. She has two young children in her home country and she sees them twice a year if she’s lucky, so that puts my sadness at leaving my own young people into perspective. Our main justification is that our helper will be there to help look after the dogs so that I can travel around with the OH but also so that I can go and see my mum in India and visit my children and friends in the UK for extended periods without having to subject my elderly canine gentlemen to boarding kennels. It’s not something I care to do at home, actually. My main priority when looking for someone to help was to find someone who loves, rather than merely tolerates, dogs. Further, my friend who’s lived all around the world and especially in Asia points our that the house has to be kept pristine in tropical climates because even the tiniest crumb will attract a whole army of six-legged unwanted guests, so there’s that too, I guess. You find your helper through your network, and the people who have been there for a while and know their way around and appreciate our Western ways attract higher salaries, of course. Helpers engaged as drivers, usually men, attract higher pay. The Hong Kong government has rigorous protections for foreign domestic helpers. They have a minimum wage but it seems that it is the done thing for Western employers to pay them 150% of minimum wage plus a food allowance. The accommodation we must provide is strictly stipulated. The townhouse we are renting has a small helper’s suite which includes an en-suite bathroom which awkwardly reminds me of that scene in that eponymous Kathryn Stockett novel, where the white women baulked at sharing their bathrooms with their black maids. You put aside a coupe of shelves in your fridge for the helper’s food too, and apparently this works well. The OH has struggled with the domestic help concept too. Employing a domestic worker is quite something for someone who has hitherto had all this done by their wife (usually) for free and it’s difficult to get one’s head around that. In fact this leaves me a bit redundant, doesn’t it? I don’t know how I’ll fill my time if it’s not all taken up by dogs, shopping, cooking and laundry. It’s been suggested that I do another degree, but I’m not keen on that idea really. I have an idea that I could make the roof terrace into a lush Mediterranean garden (in pots that can be taken in if there’s a typhoon) and I’ll finally have a bit more time to concentrate on my singing and perhaps re-learning the piano or perhaps I can finally attack my TBR pile. I don’t know. We have to join the local residents’ club so I guess I could spend time at the gym every morning and then walk the boys for longer in the evening if I’m not doing the cooking or washing up every day. Having a helper is a really odd concept: just the fact that they call you Sir or Ma’am and you call them by their first name is very strange to me. If our helper cooks for us, will I get involved? Will she be territorial about our kitchen? Will she have different rules about how to treat the dogs? I’m finding it really hard to imagine but I suppose it’s just another one of those things that has to fall into place when we arrive there. I suppose I find the transactional nature of the relationship difficult but then I’ve always chatted to plumbers and builders and heating engineers, so why should this be any different? And the money our helper earns is being sent home to feed and educate her children so there’s that. No doubt there will be more awkwardness on this subject in a few months’ time when I arrive in Hong Kong. We shall see.