Welcome to “The Help”, a series brought to you by Coconuts HK. These stories come directly from some of Hong Kong’s 320,000 foreign domestic workers. Everyone deserves a voice.
LIDIA WATI (30), PUIJIATI (25), AND HENDRY SUPRIYANI (26), FROM INDONESIA
We’ve spent a varying amounts of time in Hong Kong – Lidia has now been here for five years. She worked in a textile factory before in Indonesia; Puijiati has been here for two years and worked as a domestic helper in Singapore before; and Hendry has been here for 20 months.
We’ve all left behind something in Indonesia. Lidia and Puijiati have children back home and came here to make more money for them. Hendry has a family and business back home. All Indonesians here are supporting someone – siblings trying to go to school, husbands, and so on.
The agency that brought us over treated us well, but the seven-month salary fee was very hard on us. We could only spend HKD500-HKD1,000 per month because of that when we first came over. It was hard to get by and nearly impossible to send money back home. Afterwards, we started to do so, and now we can send up to HKD3,000 home each month.
Upon our arrival in Hong Kong, our impression was that it’s very safe and very cool city. In fact, it’s safer than back in Indonesia. We can go out at night and not feel threatened – not so back home. Transport is also remarkable here.
With some time under our belts now, however, we have heard our fair share of wacky stories – like that knife attack in Jordan MTR not too long ago. But that doesn’t bother us, Hong Kong is great.
Food and clothes are expensive here, though, and it’s even hard on our days off because they require spending – coming to [Victoria] park, buying food.
There’s also pork everywhere here! Some employers don’t care about us not eating pork, so we could end up having chicken everyday. It’s so boring! Things would be better if they were more sensitive about that.
The winters get to us too; there’s no winter in our homeland and the cold is tough at times.
One of our shared experiences, though working for different employers, is that Chinese people often call their family members over to have a feast. This obviously means we have more work to do – it could be once a week, or once a month – but we realise locals like to eat together at home rather than eating out, and they treat us well.
Taking care of difficult children is actually a worthwhile experience – in fact, it’s one of our best experiences here. It’s never a walk in the park, but it is challenging and rewarding.
Now we’ve paid our debts we have little more money so we feel better about being in Hong Kong. We spend most of our free time together – walking on the beach, shopping, hiking, or just sleeping in park… unless it rains!
Beef briskets are the best here! We only need to solve the money and pork issues.
We believe our dreams will come true. With all the money sent back home, we can change our lives, build a home and a business. We just hope we don’t need to be separated from Indonesia for too long.
If you’re a Hong Kong domestic worker with a story, good or bad, to tell, email us at the address below.
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