Annoyingly, I lost my card holder last week on the way to dress rehearsal in Stanley. Despite asking around everywhere I’d been (including paying HKD 1650 (about £150) for the privilege of ONE late night despatcher’s announcement to the HK Taxi Cooperative – I’m sure that’s a scam) it has not turned up. I had an Octopus card knocking around and I’ve already managed to replace the debit card and the gym membership card but the most important thing that went (along with the Louis Vuitton Monogram card holder) was my Hong Kong ID Card.

All Hong Kong residents have to apply for an ID shortly after arriving here and there are different classes of card for different people. Mine does not allow me to vote but I can pass quickly through the Hong Kong Residents’ automatic gates and Immigration at the airport using it, no need for a passport. You need it to open bank accounts or mobile phone contracts, as it’s a photo ID linked to your thumbprints and your residential address. Heavy fines are imposed for improper use or fraud and apparently police can stop you in the street and ask for your ID card, and this happens a lot to the Filipina Domestic Workers (Helpers) but it’s never happened to me.

Replacing your HKID is relatively straightforward but you have to go in person to the Immigration Tower in Wanchai to redo all the formalities and then pick up the replacement in person two weeks later. An efficient appointment system makes this process quite easy and booking an appointment online takes no time at all  as long as you have access to a computer. Which is where some of the stark inequalities of life in Hong Kong appear. It’s fine for me, broadbanded up as I am, but if a helper loses her ID she (it usually is a she) can find it a lot more difficult if her employer decides to throw their weight around as they often do, and refuses to let her go online to access the Immigration Department appointment booking site. 

I’m appalled at some of the stories I hear about the relationships between helpers and their employers, and I hope to talk more about these on this blog in the future. 

Often a poor helper – don’t forget they come from countries with few job opportunities and this is a way of earning money to support their families in their home country – won’t have much tech of her own and, often charged with the daily care of several children and pets as well as cooking and cleaning, they have precious little time to spend online navigating bureaucracy.

If they can’t get an online appointment they have to go on their day off – or swap their day off – and stand in line as the Immigration Tower opens in the hope of being included in the quota of people to be seen that day. MsJ tells me that Indonesian helpers, who often have little English, are somehow at the bottom of the pecking order and are told to go and wait at the Immigration Department from 4am  in the hope of a place in the queue. Imagine how grindingly tired they must be.

People like me are whisked up to the 8th floor by escalators, past the “domestic helpers'” and the “Quality migrants” – not quite sure what the definition of that is – processing areas on the lower floors. The message is clear. We are valuable in terms of revenue and tax and our spending in the territory. Lower floors for lower quality. Such is the reality of this stratified society.

But imagine being an employer and not giving up five minutes of your time to help your employee be more efficient with theirs? The humanity.