Mar 20 2008
My occupation
Can you teach an old dog a new trick? I think you might. I was just taught one.
In social setting people (especially with the school crowds) take turn introduce themselves for meeting the first time, occupation is the key ingredient minus the salary, in the East Coast anyway. Girls in their 20s armed with a PhD in Economics working in quant - the quant guys, no I mean the quant gruuuuls; fund managers with billions under their finger tips .. wow .. Then when it’s my turn, I felt very short, would mutter with a redden face .. errrr .. you know I’m a housewife.
Hausfrau in English connotation doesn’t sound as bad as in Chinese, jiafu 家妇 short for jiating zhufu 家庭主妇. China under Mao 101: because during that time, every woman worked in China - the good/educated ones. The one staying home was either a outcast, or old/illiterate or had serious flaws, a.k.a. criminals like stealing or had multiple boy/girl friends - sexual partners (during Mao’s reign, crimes were low, really low, almost to none), basically those who were ostracized, the odd balls.
“Oh, no honey ..” they took pity on me, came out in packs telling me: “It’s jiafu 家负 now”. As jiating zhuyao fuzeren 家庭主要负责人. The Chief Executive of Everything? How cool. I immediately thought about Mrs. Schwarzenegger - ouuhh Maria Shriver who took the first award . How come I didn’t think of that before?