日批在线视频_内射毛片内射国产夫妻_亚洲三级小视频_在线观看亚洲大片短视频_女性向h片资源在线观看_亚洲最大网

USEUROPEAFRICAASIA 中文雙語Fran?ais
Lifestyle
Home / Lifestyle / View

When the ayi quit work, we started a new life

By Usha Sankar | China Daily | Updated: 2011-05-31 15:39
When the ayi quit work, we started a new life

To ayi or not to ayi.

Every expat in such cities as Beijing and Shanghai has grappled with this question at least once during their stay.

For many expat women forced to play stay-at-home moms, having the luxury of making do with a single income and finding 9-5 domestic help at "affordable" rates is nothing short of heaven.

If at all there is anything that crops up to mar this idyllic picture every once in a while, it is the issue of ayi salaries. It is not uncommon to find ayi in gated compounds being paid the equivalent of what a Chinese college graduate earns. It leaves some with an uncomfortable feeling that something about this whole business is patently unfair.

But more often that not the ayi "seduction" usually works its magic, and everyone ends up being in the pro-, rather than anti-ayi, camp.

Over my nearly seven years in Beijing, I've often veered from one side to the other. Not anymore, though. My ayi of six years recently staged a walkout.

Blessed with a peculiar ability to negotiate only in multiples of 100, she demanded a 500-yuan raise. "Otherwise, you can look elsewhere," she said.

Stung by the suddenness of it all, I refused. And that was it.

And in the month since, I've suddenly discovered life's simple pleasures.

There is something about brushing clothes clean and loading them in the washing machine, watching the drum swirl, the soapsuds popping against the glass, that melts the day's stress. Seeing them emerge smelling fresh and crisp is a heady feeling. It's a ritual I look forward to.

Where once listless veggies would sit in the refrigerator for a week, I now shop for fresh produce every other day and enjoy whipping up a meal. And while I'm at it, my 13-year-old will frequently pop into the kitchen with encouraging sounds of how lovely everything smells, his bright eyes shining. My husband, when in town, will often step in with an offer to chop this or that.

We now eat together as a family around pots of freshly prepared, piping-hot food. I'm now discovering the true meaning of the old adage, "The way to a man's (and a boy's) heart is through his stomach."

A dishwasher sitting silent in my kitchen for the past two years is suddenly whirring to life, yielding cleaner dishes that I have ever seen.

Saddled with a user manual in Chinese, I never made the effort to figure out its workings. But ayi's departure had me on the Internet in a trice and with a printout of the manual in English. That's the new, proactive me.

Gardening, likewise, has become a family thing, and we are carefully tending our coriander, spinach and chilies, besides the flowers and crotons. It is now everyone's responsibility to make sure the plants are watered and the family dog is fed and walked. Not that these tasks were not taken care of by us in the past, but subconsciously we were all well aware there was a safety net, called ayi.

No coffee mug in the kitchen now means the ones sitting on study tables and in various corners of the house will have to be brought to the kitchen sink and rinsed. Missing socks in cupboards mean they will have to be dug out of the deep recesses of shoes and added to the wash pile. The list is endless.

Regaining control of our lives has been the best thing to have happened to us in our great "expat" experience.

None of this, of course, is meant to belittle the work our ayi put in. For her help, I'm eternally grateful and wish her well.

But what she has done for me now is priceless.

Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US
主站蜘蛛池模板: 国产区视频 | 特级一级黄色片 | 国产精品一级二级 | 99久久国产精 | 国产精品二三区 | 亚洲一卡二卡在线 | 成人高清在线视频 | 怡红院在线观看 | 国产a免费 | 中文字幕+乱码+中文字幕明步 | 国产伦一区二区三区 | 韩国演艺圈悲惨事件在线 | 婷婷伊人网 | 亚洲乱码一区二区 | 色拍拍视频 | 亚洲国产成人在线视频 | 黄色动漫在线免费观看 | 国产欧美高清 | 天堂在线一区二区 | 国产高清一级片 | 亚洲黄业 | 亚洲成人影院在线观看 | 免费看久久 | h在线网站| 日韩av免费 | 亚洲欧美日韩精品在线 | 婷婷在线观看视频 | 日本一级在线观看 | 免费在线观看成年人视频 | 免费观看黄色一级片 | 欧美日韩成人一区 | 欧美性大交 | 一级做a爱片久久 | 日韩免费视频一区 | 国产精品99精品久久免费 | 色播播五月 | 亚洲天堂中文字幕在线 | 午夜不卡影院 | 国产一区二区久久 | 日日网站| 毛片的网址 |