Cooking, cleaning, washing... all in a 14-hour whirl

The domestic helper

Shen Xiaohua's high-pressure workday begins when she rises at 6 am. The 44-year-old domestic helper then has just 50 minutes to wash, gulp down breakfast and cycle to her employer's home 3 km away. She then starts preparing breakfast for the family she works for, a couple with two children.

She uses an electric cooker to make porridge, typical Chinese breakfast fare made with rice and meat or vegetable, and prepare noodles for the 8-year old girl, who needs to leave for school by 7:30 am.

Shen usually spends the morning cleaning the three-room apartment on the 13th floor, from where there is a view of the wetlands that separate Shenzhen and Hong Kong. At springtime, that sparkling scenery is often accompanied with a warm breeze coming in from the south. But Shen has little time to lap up any of that because she needs to be at another workplace by midday.

That is a hotpot restaurant about 7 km away, which she goes to by bus, and she is there until 3 pm washing vegetables.

The stay-at-home lady of the household is amenable to Shen's working in the restaurant because during the day she often heads out to visit friends, do courses on self-improvement or family relationships or gives a hand to her husband, who runs an Internet company.

The couple's daughter is at primary school and their son, 3, is in kindergarten all day.

After cleaning vegetables in the restaurant, Shen takes the bus to her home, where she gets barely 15 minutes rest before heading out and taking a bus to her employer's daughter's school, where she must be by 4 pm to pick up the girl. The pair then head back to the girl's home about 4 km away.

On the journey, among the things Shen has time to think about is what she needs to buy when she goes to a supermarket to buy cooking ingredients so she can prepare dinner for the family.

After cooking is done and the family has eaten, Shen is ready to wash and dry dishes (dishwashing machines are not as common in China as in many Western countries) and clean the kitchen. At 9 pm she heads back home.

She has one day off a week.

"My daughters (aged 24 and 26) have asked me to give up work and let them support me," Shen says. "But I don't want be a burden."

Like many women in rural China, Shen, from a village in Jingzhou, Central China's Hubei province, married when she was 17, even though, by the letter of the law, women are not supposed to marry until they are 20.

Her older daughter and her boyfriend have settled in a city in Shandong province after she graduated from university, and they plan to marry in the second half of this year.

The younger daughter works for a logistics company in Shenzhen and attends an open university during the weekend, aiming to upgrade in two years a diploma that she obtained earlier.

"When they were young, I worked hard so they could get a good education," Shen says.

"Now I'm working hard to help them fulfill their dreams; their dreams are my dreams."

The daughter in Shandong who is about to marry plans to buy an apartment there, and Shen and her husband have been considering chipping in to help them with the mortgage and helping the younger daughter to pay for her education.

Shen is an only child, and her parents, both in their 70s, are another big concern. Last year, her mother broke her arm and Shen stopped working so she could return home and look after her.

Although farmers are covered by medical insurance, Shen says she needs to keep some money aside in case of emergencies.

Her husband, a chef in a company canteen, is much more relaxed than her, she says. He loves music and has never quite given up his dream of being a professional singer.

Just a couple of days earlier, he splashed out 7,000 yuan ($1,122, 812 euros), about how much she is paid in two months, to buy a saxophone.

But if that irks Shen, she is showing none of it, seeing it all as rather amusing.

"Isn't it just crazy? A fat guy who's nearly 50 goes out, plays the saxophone in the park and hopes to be a singer before he hits 60."

After work, she goes back to the rented one-room apartment on a noisy street because, though shabby, it is warm.

Her employer Ruby Zhang says she values Shen's help. "She is very patient and caring with the children, cooks delicious food and is meticulous with the cleaning. The kids love her."

Shen says she is happier in her current job than she was in the last one, where she had to work harder and the pay was not as good.

Earlier she worked for three years, in a ceramics company in Foshan, Guangdong province, as a quality inspector.

"I had to lift ceramic products weighing more than 50 kg, from the ground to the work table and check the quality. When I left that job I could lift 300 pieces a day."

She was paid about 3,000 yuan a month, but it left her exhausted every day, she says.

Later she came to Shenzhen and worked as a saleswoman in the delicatessen of the French supermarket chain Carrefour. The job was easy and she was happy, she says, because she could make friends. But she quit after six months because of the poor pay, 1,800 yuan a month.

Ai Xiaoxiong, general manager of Zhongjia Homemaking Group of Shenzhen, one of China's biggest home services companies, says demand for quality domestic helpers is rising in cities.

Salaries have increased greatly, almost 10-fold in 10 years, he says.

"Families in a city full of migrants need domestic helpers to take care of their babies and the elderly, and to clean the house or cook."

There is no shortage of work or of home help, and Ai says his company can put domestic helpers and prospective employers in touch with one another nationwide.

chenhong@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 04/25/2014 page15)