26.12.09: Sunday mornings at my house

We hired an ayi in October. I was a bit ambivalent about it first; the thought of hiring someone else to do my cooking and cleaning made me feel like a pretentious bourgeois prat. However, it's not very expensive to take on a housekeeper here, and I was tired after working late everyday at work. And if the difference between fighting with Beau over who needs to clean the bathroom or having someone else do it so we can both spend our time doing the things we enjoy is only a few hundred RMB, then springing for an ayi was totally worth it.

Only we managed to take on a lunatic. She was recommended by a co-worker who is apparently never home when the maid is there. I miss her on Tuesdays and Fridays because I'm at work, but on Sunday mornings, she comes into the house and starts shouting to find out who's home. Of course, if I've been out the night before, I'm still in bed, and if I'm in bed, I'm nekkid. This does not bother her in the least. She comes in, wrenches open the curtains, and shouts at me while I lay in bed wondering if my ass is hanging out the back of the blankets. Then she sweeps and chatters nonsense and I can't stand up because as humiliating as it is, I really don't want to show her my naked flesh. Last time, Beau tried to be clever and lock the door, only he didn't quite manage it and she walked in on him in his birthday suit. She closed the door and start cackling heartily; I confess, I giggled, too. But I definitely jumped out of bed and got dressed as quickly as I could as well.



She has me, Beau, and the roommate all under her thumb. Poor Roommate heard her as soon as she came in the other day, and had to jump out of bed, get his clothes out of the wash and hang them on the line before she took off her coat because he knew he would get an earful otherwise. I made the mistake of being in the house when she arrived last weekend, and got scolded for going to the coffee shop to read in peace instead of staying home to eat the food she cooked for us. She likes to cook special meals on Sundays. I tried to leave early this morning but Beau was scared that if I didn't pick up the laundry on the floor of our bedroom, we would get yelled at. "I'm paying here to pick up the laundry I leave on the floor!" I snapped at him. But then I picked it up and made sure to leave before she arrived and tried to make me stay for lunch again.

Her accent is terribly thick, and she accuses Beau and I of speaking Taiwanese because she can't understand us, so we don't converse as much as hold mutually incomprehensible shouting matches. Last time she came in when I was in bed, I had to shout at her that I was sick (meaning hungover) so she would not open the drapes and shout at me as I tried to sleep away my Sunday. I feel like I hurt her feelings and then I felt like a total ass on top of feeling like death warmed over. She really is this adorable grandmotherly type and I am certain it would bring her great joy to mop the floor as she watched us eat the meal she prepared, but I am emotionally claustrophobic so if anyone really, really wants me to do anything I balk and flee. I've already considered seeing if we can upgrade to someone with a sense of volume and decorum, but I think it would be too cruel to let her go and I am not sure I am up to the task. She is already convinced that she has some special insight into working for foreigners because she works for three or four other foreign couples, but I imagine that like me, none of them are home when she arrives, and maybe they have more sense than to invite her in on the weekends. I also think it's a good incentive for me to go to the cafe on Sunday mornings and read, write, and journal, but I also hate feeling like it's necessary to run away from the housekeeper.

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