It’s Sunday, day of the ‘maids’ in Hong Kong. This is an extraordinary phenomenon, experienced intensely if you’re walking the streets of Central Hong or practically in any public space in Kowloon. There are something like 400,000 “domestic helpers” (“maids” to some, “servants” to a few) in Hong Kong. Yes, that’s a lot for a city/region of about 7.5 million. They are overwhelmingly female, and from the Philippines or from Indonesia.
These “helpers” typically have their one day-off in the week on Sunday. They shop and meet their friends. They share food, sometimes dance together or just lie and sleep. As there are very limited seats or benches to just sit down in Hong Kong, these women find space on pavements, elevated walkways, parking areas and the like, sitting on rugs or just flattened cardboard boxes.
If you’ve not seen it before difficult to describe the totally overwhelming impact of experiencing the Maids on their day out. It leave very mixed feelings. There’s signs of joy and some fun; also, of exhaustion. The conditions of work in Hong Kong mean that these women are obliged to live with their employers, often shouldering caring responsibilities for the owners’ children of dependent seniors. Whilst these arrangements may work for some, cases of exploitation and abuse have been exposed by advocacy groups and from first person accounts.
The “maids'”day out raises many questions about social relations in Hong Kong and about the poverty and lack of opportunity that drives these women to leave their families in the Philippines and Indonesia, to work and typically send money back home from Hong Kong.
Today we encountered the “maids” in Mong Kok as we shopped the markets and strode the elevated walkways.