Page 87 - Chinese Woman Living and Working

74 WANNING SUN
Chen used to work as a live-in baomu, but now she is a part-timer, working for seven
employers a day, each for one hour. Chen got her job through the neighbourhood
domestic service introduction agency, and is paid from 4 to 5 yuan an hour. She works
from morning till late afternoon, hurrying from one job to another. She makes around
800 to 900 yuan a month, half of which is spent on living expenses and accommodation.
Although admitting that her work is very hard, Chen still prefers part-time work to being
a live-in baomu, as it gives her more freedom. ‘He [she referred to Mr Mi, her employer]
trusts me and gives me the key to his flat, and he is usually not there when I work.’
Chen’s desire for autonomy and independence is resonant with quite a few part-time
younger cleaners I interviewed in Shanghai. While employers may want their maid to
know as little as possible about their private life, so the maid may desire to be free from
the scrutiny and judgement of her employers. When I asked Chen to tell me which
‘fantasy’ job would give her the ultimate freedom and independence, she said, ‘I would
like to work in a factory, where I clock in and clock out, and the job is secure.’ Chen’s
answer may come as a surprise to many people, for factory work is hardly associated with
freedom and autonomy. However, I choose to read Chen Shuiying’s wish as an indication
of her incipient ‘modern’ subjectivity In her imagination the factory represents a more
public and impersonal workplace, unlike the job of a baomu, which is limited to the family
and domestic sphere, and thus subject to surveillance and close scrutiny.

Home and away: Baomu in the city
The two domestic maids mentioned earlier say that they do not like Shanghai. ‘It is noisy
and full of thieves. I never go shopping alone because it is not safe,’ said Chen Shuiying. ‘I
don’t like Shanghai because the only thing that matters here is money. We speak a
different dialect and people look down on us because we sound different’, said Chen
Caiyun. To these women, Shanghai represents the ultimate otherness of the modern life:
it is an alienating and unfriendly place. On the other hand, both also told me that they
would like to work in Shanghai for as long as they can, including settling down, if
possible. ‘The city is better than the country (chengli zong bi xiangxia hao). It’s easy to make
money here’, said Chen Shuiying. Asked if she would settle down in Shanghai, Chen
Caiyun replied, ‘I don’t think it is possible, but if it was, I would.’
While Chen Caiyun seems uncertain about her prospects in Shanghai, she is keen to see
that her children have a life in the city. She said that her son wanted to get into one of the
three trades: cuisine, mechanical repair and taxi-driving. Her daughter wanted to enrol in
computer literacy classes. The city, to her, is a land of opportunities; although she may not
find the city to her liking, she intuitively knew that it is the city, not the village back
home, which represents the future.
If these migrant women are ambivalent about the city, they are equally ambivalent
about home. Both Chen Caiyun and Chen Shuiying have been in Shanghai for a number of
years, but both say that eventually they may go back home, for ‘after all, home is home’
(jia zong gui shi jia). Having said that, they also contradicted themselves by implying that
home is not where one wanted to be. ‘The environment is no good’ (huanjing buhao), said
Chen Caiyun. ‘Home is good but there is no money to be made,’ said Chen Shuiying.