Page 80 - Chinese Woman Living and Working

THE MAID IN CHINA 67
techniques in raising chickens. When she had accumulated enough capital, she quit her job
as a maid and started her own chicken farm outside Beijing. Becoming competent and
confident in her business, she finally decided to return to Wuwei, and became a
shareholder and manager in the village-run chicken farm, which generated an annual
income of 200,000 yuan (Yang and Guan 1999).
Like Zhao, many baomu, once dislocated from their village homes, effectively formed
employment networks by liaising between their village home and the city, communicating
information about market demand and offering tips about money-making and
employment opportunities. Zhang Jingcui, once a maid from Wuwei, is one such
networker. She went to Beijing in 1980, and following her introductions and
recommendations, many people from her own and her relatives’ families also came to
Beijing. She has since returned to Wuwei to live but travels regularly to Beijing to see her
two sons, who run a toy shop and a fast food business respectively, and her daughter, who
works in the retail clothing trade (Hu 2001:9). This ‘Wuwei baomu’ became an exemplary
figure for rural women from other provinces. Zhang’s success in leaving home, seeking
paid employment in the city was an inspiration to rural women in China. Many of them,
particularly those from Henan, Sichuan, and Gansu, largely rural and compatively
underdeveloped provinces, followed suit, left home and set out for the city (Wang
Xinping 1996:139).
The stories of these two Wuwei women exemplify a few patterns of the baomu
profession in the 1980s. First, once they have taken the first step of leaving home, the
maid becomes a conduit between home and the city, conveying information about the job
market, business contacts and ways of making money. She is an initiator and a vital link in
the chain of rural-urban migration. Second, unlike her historical predecessors, most maids
nowadays do not see it important to be dedicated to their profession or loyal to their
employers. Many maids treat the job of baomu as only a first step to independence, a
temporary way of finding anchorage in the city, and a stepping stone into some more
lucrative and autonomous ways of earning a living. Many move from being a maid into
other types of work, finding employment in small businesses, grocery and vegetable retail
outlets, restaurants, the retail clothing trade and elsewhere. Lastly, the ‘humble’ maid, or
the ‘xiao baomu’ as she is often referred to, is indeed a translocal, or a liminal figure,
poised between here and there, who with her introductions, liaison and networking,
contributes to revitalising the economies and markets of her hometown, the region as
well as the city. Finally, her work as a maid in middle-class families in the city helps to
meet the growing demand for the most menial yet responsible domestic work.

The ‘branding’ of the baomu
By the 1980s, with the arrival of maids from Wuwei en masse, ‘Wuwei baomu’ became a
household term. ‘Mention baomu, one thinks of Anhui; mention Anhui baomu, one thinks
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of Wuwei’, as the saying goes in Beijing. As with any ‘brand name’, the Wuwei baomu is
known among Beijing urbanities to have certain qualities: she is known to be competent,
efficient, clean and tidy, and good with children. As with any other ‘branded’ consumer