Maids in China

As I shared briefly in class on last Tuesday, most of the urban Chinese family own housemaids or nannies. Some of my friends even had three maids and drivers who divided work evenly (kitchen, different floors, gardening, etc.) My own family also had two maids. Both of them were very young; one was 24 years old, and the other one was 26 years old. My mom preferred to hire younger maids based on her past experience with Chinese maids .. they worked more diligently, and they had less family duties, so they did not really have to go back to their home town over Chinese national holidays. My mom usually changes maids once a year because she feels like they become loose as they get used to my family or become close to us. It, hence, was kind of difficult to build close relationship with them, honestly, and my mom did not want any of us to do anything friendly to them. This was because we heard a lot of stories about how Chinese maids stole money and ran away after how Korean family was so friendly to them.. since in the beginning, Koreans have difficulty with speaking Chinese, and the maids usually help the family out especially with financial problems.

Most of the maids who worked in my house had similar reasons why they came to Shanghai to work as maids. We first hired maids who were Chao Xian Zu which is Chinese minority group who are actually Korean descendants. They speak both Korean and Chinese, so many Koreans hire them when they first come to China. Chao Xian Zu, especially females, have difficulty with employment in China, so most of them do end up working as maids. After we could communicate in Chinese, my mom hired Chinese maids because they are cheaper to hire. Most of them are migrant workers from very local Chinese villages who are mostly illiterate, and this is the only way they can make living. They leave children behind and migrate to big cities like Shanghai and Beijing only with their husbands and send money back to their family in hometown.