Sunday, November 27, 2011

Jei Jeis

Other than the young age of my students, one thing that really sets my job apart from your average teaching job is that each child is accompanied by another person. I'd say 80% of the time, this other person is a domestic helper, usually from the Philippines. These women are referred to as "jei jei" or "aunty" by their employer's children. The other 20% are with parents or grandparents, but most of the children in Hong Kong are raised by their jei jei. Especially the affluent children that I teach at my school.

At the moment, I'm reading a popular novel called The Help and I can't help compare the lives of African American women in the 1950s American south to the jei jeis in modern Hong Kong. Certainly the racism here is not as fierce as that, but sometimes I sense that there is a sort of racial hierarchy that no one really talks about. The smaller darker women do things like change the kids' diapers while the parents go out and buy their baby designer clothes. Similarly to the maids in The Help, I see the children get deeply attached to the jei jeis, often more comfortable with them than their parents. Of course, the majority of the parents I meet seem like kind, benevolent people but there's no denying that having a personal servant dependent on you for a salary is a bit of a power trip. 

On Sundays, certain areas of Hong Kong are completely packed with domestic helpers socializing with one another on their one legally mandated day off. They flock to places like Victoria Park in Causeway Bay just to sit and socialize in their native Tagalog. If you go here on a Sunday, there's a sea of these women covering every patch of grass. The same can be said for the cheap market places in Mong Kok and Yau Ma Tei; it's really quite a sight. In your head, you may picture the ethnic makeup of Hong Kong as being Chinese people with a few white folks like me mixed in. But in reality, there are probably just as many if not more Filipina women as Westerners, though I don't know the exact numbers.   

Filipino people typically speak English and Tagalog fluently, so at my school, I'm able to occasionally converse with them. Teaching toddlers can occasionally be a bit boring as the kids can't do all that much yet, so I enjoy talking with the jei jeis. It's rarely about anything more personal than small talk about the kid they look after, but these women are almost always friendly, kind people despite their low social standing. We're supposed to scold them from speaking Tagala during class, but I have no problem with them making friends with other jei jeis at the school, as long as they are looking after and caring for their kid. The way I see it, their life is probably very hard, living away from their family, doing the dirty work that no Hong Kong people want to do. So I try to make coming to my classes a pleasant part of their daily routine, not just another place they get ordered around to do this and do that. 

Of course, my focus is always on the children more than anything. But I try to make the experience fun for everyone, including myself and the classroom teacher. Sure, every job gets tedious sometimes but it's worth it to do the little things here and there.  

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Thanksgiving 2011

Though today is a major holiday in the USA, it's nothing special in Hong Kong for obvious reasons. Still, I wish all my American friends and family a happy turkey day today. I write this in the middle of a stretch of eleven straight weeks with no days off save Sundays. This is part of my excuse for being less consistent about posting here. Also, now that I've been in Hong Kong for several months, I have fewer touristy discoveries to report. Still, I think that on this Thanksgiving Day, I'll do another sort of 'day in the life' blog post, much like I did several months ago.

6:30 am: Wake up and get ready to begin the day.

7:15: Board the minibus to Choi Hung. The bus I take nearly every day now, this relatively quiet and cheap 16-person bus winds through the hills by the water of Clearwater Bay. It's a relaxing way to start the morning and minimizes the time I spend on the MTR, which is insanely crowded in the morning. On the ride over, I listened to The Go-Betweens on my iPod.

7:35: Take the MTR four stops from Choi Hung to Kowloon Tong.

7:50: Enjoy a 'chocolate hazelnut pillow' with some ice lemon tea from Pacific Coffee Company in the Festival Walk mall while relaxing on their comfortable red couches.

8:20: Arrive at work (right next to the mall), change into my uniform and prepare for the days lesson. This included practicing my own ukulele arrangement of 'Turkey in the Straw' in celebration of the holiday. As my school is an American school, we were encouraged to find ways to celebrate, which is obviously fine by me.

9:00: Begin the first of my four consecutive morning classes. Today, I had the students make turkey handprints before we feasted on food that everyone brought from home. It wasn't turkey or mashed potatoes, but various cakes and crackers are enough to make me happy. The Cantonese phrase for tasty is 'Ho mei!'

12:00 pm: The fourth class ends and instead of getting lunch during my break, I just socialized with the teachers a bit in the staff room before going up to the empty playroom to read a few pages from The Help on my Kindle. I even had time for a brief nap, something that almost never happens. With all the food in the morning, I did not need to spend any money or time on lunch today. For this, I give thanks :)

1:30: My first 45-minute prep period of the day, where I began this blog post for lack of anything better to do.

2:15: Teach two more classes. These consisted mostly of eating more food and trying to convince children that the paint on their hands was not scary. Some cried hysterically when the paint brush touched their palm, for whatever reason.

4:00: Go back to the staff room for my second prep period. Here, I began working on my D.O.L. or Demonstration of Learning. This is a bunch of photos of my students doing some activity from my lesson, like, for example, sticking straws on PVC paper. Unfortunately, the computer was so slow that I got extremely frustrated and left work in a rather sour mood.

5:30: Take the MTR to Mong Kok to this inexpensive suit shop where I exchange my recently purchased white shirt for the pink shirt I had originally requested. Earlier this week, I bought a tailored Chinese-style suit for my school's tenth anniversary dinner next week. It cost me roughly $80 US for everything and I plan to keep this suit for a while. Gotta love Hong Kong and its cheap stuff.

7:15: Arrived home in Chan Uk Village after taking the double-decker bus from Diamond Hill. Again, I love taking busses to avoid the MTR rush hour crowds, AM or PM. About twenty people ride this bus despite its capacity of 100.

7:45: Walked down with roommate Ben to our neighbor Glenn's house where we played Wii Sports video games to burn off some steam. I lost at just about every game, but it was nice to catch up with Glenn and later on, his housemates Katie and Angela. These three Westerners (American, English and Canadian) go way back with Ben and were some of the first people I met in Hong Kong. After only four months, they already feel like old friends.

9:30: Came back to my flat where I turned on my computer and finished writing this blog. My Facebook status is currently, "Happy Thanksgiving! I probably have more to be thankful for this year than any other. Love to you all." It's a true statement. Particularly if you care enough about me to finish this entire post. Have a sane black Friday tomorrow!

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Random Update

Hello to all of you again. I’m sorry that I had to take down the photos of my students from last week. I was informed that this isn’t something I’m allowed to do, even on my own personal blog. I didn’t get in trouble, just told that what went up must come down. But I hope to see many of you over Christmas and share more photos with you in person if you didn’t see the photos before!

Life in Hong Kong is still wonderful, though I’m definitely ready to come home for the holidays. The combination of work exhaustion and homesickness is pretty potent, though I’m sure I’ll be ready to come back here after two weeks. Hong Kong is an incredible place. I’m continuing to discover new things about it every week and really consider it a second home now.

This Thursday is Thanksgiving, although I’m not sure how much I’ll celebrate it. Not for lack of thankfulness, but because I have to work all day and don’t know who I should celebrate with. I’ve met plenty of Americans but none who have the resources and/or energy to cook up a turkey. It’s kind of a shame, but I’m sure something will happen.

Recently, I’ve been pondering the idea of being a music teacher in Hong Kong one day. That’s essentially what my preschool classes have become, which is great. But I wonder if teaching older kids about music may be a better long-term job down the road. Particularly since music classes are typically taught in English here.

This was just a brief, rather uneventful update for those of you who wanted such a thing. I continue to believe that coming here has been the best decision I have ever made and I want YOU to visit sometime.