The Ayi

Any Embassy family and anyone with and expat package in China will tell you the ayi (maid) is an essential part of existence here. A good one will make your experience one you can't wait to repeat and a bad one will be devastating.

For roughly $200/month it is possible to hire a full-time ayi who will shop, cook, clean, do laundry, take care of children (sometime you pay a bit more for that) and pets and do virtually any other household chore you can dream up. It didn't take us long to conclude that hiring our ayi had to be a top priority. One trip into a Chinese grocery store and we knew we'd be eating in restaurants until we had an ayi. Of the food content of a supermarket (most carry some clothes, furnishings, small appliances and assorted other things), 90% is unrecognizable to an American (even one like me who really likes to cook and has at least one cookbook for every region of the world that has any kind of identifiable cuisine). Given that we can't identify it, we certainly don't know how to determine its quality, select it or cook it. An ayi capable of shopping and cooking was clearly essential. Cleaning we figured was less important (our building provides hotel-like housekeeping service twice a week), we have a washer/dryer unit that washes (it doesn't dry so well) and a dishwasher, but we were rapidly getting tired of restaurant food so we set about hiring an ayi.

The primary approach to this task is word-of-mouth. Unfortunately we didn't know too many mouths. We did have the weekly Embassy newsletter which, among other things, contains a listing of ayi recommendations from Embassy families moving on and leaving their ayis jobless. The first week one I tried was already taken and the other never responded. In desperation we called our real estate agent who has been extremely helpful. She referred us to a service who sent someone for us to interview. We also found a candidate through the Embassy newsletter.

They both came on Saturday for interviews. Neither claimed to cook well ("just home cooking...nothing fancy, not restaaurant food"). The Embassy contact had 20 years of experience working for foreigners and expected us to be gullible. We were only asking for 6 hours/day not 8. She asked us for RMB2000 (about $250), an extra month's pay as bonus, all Chinese holidays off (oh and it would be nice to get American holidays too; oh and she doesn't want to shop - one of the most important tasks for us). Never mind that we're an easy assignment. Not only do we have no kids, but Ben will be traveling a great deal and I'll join him when I can, so the ayi will often have just one to care for, and will occasionally have no tasks except to drop by and feed the cats. The very nice ayi sent by the service has never worked for foreigners, speaks no English at all (literally...bye bye is about it) and she speaks Mandarin with a strong accent from Anhui province making it difficult even for Ben to communicate with her sometimes. Nevertheless, she was willing to do everything we asked and when we offered RMB1500 she jumped at it. We felt guilty and tried to offer her holidays, bonus, etc. She said she would appreciate the holidays but would only take a bonus if we felt she deserved it...it wasn't about money it was about relationships. She's hired.

She started Tuesday. Ben didn't make it home in time for her arrival and I had her all to myself for 2 hours. Communication was a disaster and a half. Thank goodness we'd written down a list of chores and Ben had translated it. I think maybe she was insulted when I showed it to her. She does know her job. We couldn't begin to discuss what she might buy at the store so I handed over the laundry and showed her how to operate the machine. That went ok, but then she started looking for other work to do. Housekeeping had finished shortly before she arrived so everything had been mopped (most of the floors are marble), dusted, etc. I failed utterly to communicate that housekeeping had just come. She set about mopping (we had a mop but that's about it for cleaning supplies). She then tried dusting with a damp cloth, washing windows and I don't even know what else. I made one desperate phone call after another to Ben trying to reach him so he could give her some guidance. No luck...except in the front areas where spouses are permitted, the Embassy prohibits cell phones, cameras, etc. Ben was, of course, in a meeting in the protected area.

When Ben finally got home we started to make some progress. The three of us went off to the supermarket together (and, lo and behold, she knew a fabulous supermarket much closer than the decent one we'd located on our own). We negotiated the vegetables where Zhang Ayi wanted to know which we liked and which we didn't. I don't like celery. Other than that, I either didn't recognize the vegetables or like them just fine. We got sauteed eggplant, blanched greens of some sort and a light broth with mushrooms and a bit of egg. We got more-or-less vegetarian yesterday, too. I think Zhang Ayi feels we need a good system cleansing after eating so many meals in restaurants. I think she's right. Her food is light and delicious and all protestations aside, she's an excellent cook. So what if she doesn't know how to cook western food. I don't want it anyway :)

Zhang Ayi not only cooks well, she seems to be an excellent shopper and a good steward of our funds. We offered to let her have more-or-less as much cash as she needed to outfit the kitchen properly (it came supplied with a soup pot, a steamer, a pressure cooker, some knives and not much else). She insisted on buying just what she needed as she needs it. Watching her pick over vegetables to get the best ones for the best price certainly puts my shopping style to shame. She must have spent ten minutes poring over the oils to select just the right type for the right price and ordinary salt (just about the only thing in our cabinets) wouldn't do...we must have "health salt." I'm not sure what that is, but the food tastes great and it's a relief to be eating light, clean and at home.

Not only does Zhang Ayi shop and cook every day, but she cleans our giant apartment from top to bottom every day, regardless of whether housekeeping has been there before her. Laundry is done daily (which is ok since our mini-washer holds about 1 day's worth of clothes), the beds are made, cats fed, everything ironed and put away neatly.

Today Zhang Ayi took me to the post office to show me how to mail letters (we can do it at the Embassy through the USPS, but I thought our family/friends might enjoy getting mail with cool foreign stamps). It's a 2 mile walk to the post office. Then you have to shuttle back and forth from counter to counter...it can't go in the envelopes I'd used...it has to be stamped (not with pretty foreign stamps just with something that labels it "letter")...and on and on and on. Sorry guys...if you get mail at all, it's going through the good old USPS. The post office adventure did, however, have a positive outcome. Zhang Ayi and I started to overcome our communication barrier. I still can't exactly talk with her and vice versa, but I did manage to understand that she's determined to teach me Chinese (good...I'm determined to learn it! :) ). I learned the words for bag, key, stop, turn, right and left. After I almost got hit by a car that came out of nowhere (drivers don't stop at red lights before turning right here...I'm really going to have to get used to that fast if I don't want to die!), I even managed to tell Zhang Ayi (so that she understood) that I hadn't expected the car because in the US they stop before turning. Ok...so I can't tell her we need more apple juice or to please pick up my favorite treat at the bakery, but it's a start.

I fear we're going to be very spoiled when we get home and I'm pretty sure that a full-time housekeeper in the US charges a little more than $200/month!