Mar 07 2008
Shunde maid
The servant pecking order in Hong Kong was geographical: Shunde, local HK Chinese, China mainlander and Filipino.
Shunde is a small town in Guangdong province. I don’t know the history of it, but women from there were single with excellent domestic skills. They were a dying breed hence were very much in demand among the affluent. They were easy to identify: worn white top, black pants and pull their hair neatly into a bun above the neck. In the grocery alleys, they were like the peacocks, often with Roll or Benz waiting on the streets - the result of living in the Middle Level or the Peak. They roughly commended 3x salary as the Filipino’s; the local HK Chinese got 2x and the mainland Chinese 1.5x, something like that. Many middle class young families would use Filipino, since most of them speak English. But I did see some older families with Filipinos to ease out some dirty hard work that their Chinese maids didn’t want to do. The monthly rate for a Filipino maid in HK is HK$3,670 plus HK$400 government levy (about US$523) a 6-day week. To dignify the maid, Philippines set $400 mim monthly salary. Singapore is still paying around $200. Geeee, no wonder many expats prefer Singapore, 
cleaner air and much cheaper maid ..
Uncle Phillip (Lily’s youngest child) was sent to Hong Kong by Bank of America in 1979 after getting his MBA fm Harvard. He’s single and out about most evenings, but he managed to snapped up a Shunde maid, with some connections. She kept his midlevel apartment that over looking the harbour spotless, and her culinary skill was really something else. When Auntie Ling and I were invited over for dinner the first time, in the beginning she was very sweet and courteous to me, Miss Cheung this and Miss Cheung that. Before she served dinner, she came out fill our drinks and chatted briefly with us. When she asked where I was from, her attitude suddenly changed to being very snobbish, Hong Kongers were like that and China was that a drab.