Serfs and Slaves

OK, I just have to do it.  I have to put in my 5c worth on the helper situation.  It's mainly because I've begun the tedious process of finding a new helper in our new location.

What am I looking for?  It's that "je ne sais quoi" thing.  All I know is that when we met our last helper we all knew it.  Yes we all interview helpers in a kind of terribly intimidating panel.  Maybe spunk is the word.  I don't do docile too well.  I want someone who is looking to improve themselves and their lot.  I want someone who has the get up and go that if she doesn't like working for me she'll take the matter into her own hands and leave, and not get unhappy and mean.  I want a housekeeper. Not a maid.

I keep on starting and stopping this post.  I've just interviewed 3 potential employees.  It's tough.  We have a panel.  Myself and my husband, good cop and bad cop.  My son to come in at just the right moment to check that their youth was sufficiently full of stories of swimming in the river and catching frogs.  My daughter to give them the evil eye stare that she practised our whole time in Istanbul followed by an angelic smile.

What on earth do you ask a potential helper?  Are there any lists of questions out there?  My husband always wants to know what they do during the weekend / time off.  He likes people with a life as well.  Extra points if they are part of a choir or play volley ball or dance (not in dodgy night clubs) or music etc.  Church is fine as long as they don't try to convert any of us.  It's sad when I hear that some people only get 1 day off a month.  Yes you heard that right, that is all that is required by law here.  It also worries me when they use there day off (if it's each week) to do 2 or 3 other part time jobs.  How about down time?

I need to know they can cook.  Not only cook, but given a few recipe books can plan meals for the week, do the groceries for the ingredients and put it together on a plate without my input.  I'm not fussy as long as there is no cucumber involved and it's 90% vegetarian (100% during the week) and it tastes good.  That's what I've become used to.

We also ask when last they went home.  I don't like hearing that they last saw their children 4 years ago. It really really pains me.

Last salary - the lady we saw this afternoon was just about in tears.  Her contract said S$400 but her employer was only giving her S$350 each month and refused to discuss why.  Plus the other helper in the household had a vendetta against her and had put a scorpion in her food which had bitten her.  Should I believe these stories?  Why shouldn't I?  I need to believe because I must trust my children with these people.

That's what disturbs me on the right of abode and other "rights" issues concerning helpers.  I already notice there is a qualitative difference in the people I'm seeing here in Singapore compared to HK.  It's obvious why.  In HK, as bad as it is in absolute terms, it's relatively better than Singapore, which is in turn relatively better than Bahrain for example (we're scooping the bottom of the barrel here).  Actually it's in any countries interest to treat their migrant workers well, as they can vote with their feet.  Not all of them.  But the best of them.  And we're talking about the women who bring up our children in our absence (if we're working full time).  Wouldn't you want the best possible to choose from.  Isn't it disturbing if the best possible are not choosing your country to work in?  This is just a pure economic question, never mind all the emotion around human rights and bleeding hearts that has been slinging around Spike's blog. (see the comments).

We still haven't made a decision, but we've ranked the people we've seen with everyone giving their input, and we're surprisingly unanimous.  Here's hoping it will all work out.

some are more equal than others ....

May suggested that I may want to talk about a few things which I miss about Hong Kong.  There are many so I'll just focus on one thing that's been bugging me a little.  I know it's quite understandable and all that.  And I can appreciate that the SG govt wants to look after its own and keep them happy.  But as a foreigner in HK, as soon as you have your HK ID you may as well be a local more or less for all intents and purposes.  Not so here.

Let's take a couple of little examples.

As part of my resettlement process I'm looking into library membership. I know, really old fashioned and all.  Here is what I find:

1. Policies for Members

1. Basic Membership for Singaporeans and Permanent Residents
• Singaporeans aged 15 and above need to produce their NRIC. Those below the age of 7 need to produce one parent's NRIC for verification. Those aged 7 to 14 need to produce their MOE School SmartCard AND one parent's NRIC. Annual Membership is free.
• Permanent Residents aged 15 and above need to produce their Singapore Blue NRIC. Those below the age of 7 are to produce one parent's NRIC for verification. Those aged 7 to 14 need to produce their MOE School SmartCard AND one parent's NRIC. A one-time non-refundable registration fee of $10.50 is charged. Annual membership is free.

2. Membership Card Fee
• Applicants under the age of 7 are given free membership cards.
• School-going children (Singaporeans and PRs), aged 7-14 years can use their School Smart Card as a membership card to borrow library items after registration. If they wish to have a membership card as well, they need to pay a fee of $1.00 for it.
• Applicants aged 15 and above can use their NRIC / NTUC Link Card / SAF11B / School Smart Card / Singapore Mint Personalised ez-link Card/ Personal CashCard / Singapore Driving Licence / Passion Card as a membership card to borrow library items after registration. If they wish to have a membership card as well, they need to pay a fee of $5.00 for it.
• .....
3. Membership for Foreigners
• Foreigners need to produce their passport AND employment pass/work permit/student pass /dependant's pass (with a remaining validity of at least 3 months, except for the student pass). A registration fee of $10.50 as well as an annual foreign membership fee of $42.80 are charged. The registration fee of $10.50 will again be charged when a membership has expired for more than 6 months or when a member changes his status to PR before the expiration of his foreign membership. All fees paid are non-refundable.
• Foreign Members are entitled to borrow FOUR library items from the lending section of the libraries. In addition, they can borrow another FOUR additional items comprising books/ magazines/music scores/audio-visual materials. Loan period for books and music scores is 21 days while loan period for audio-visual materials and magazines is 14 days.

We're looking to employ a helper.  Here is what I find about the government levy:

Foreign Domestic Worker Levy
Employers who are not Singapore Citizens have to pay a monthly Foreign Domestic Worker levy of $265.00 to the Government on top of the domestic helper s salary. We will assist you in completing a GIRO form- authorization for electronic direct debit mechanism as a means to collect payments i.e. levy

If one of the employer is a Singaporean, a reduced levy of $170.00 per month is applicable if:
    * the employer or spouse has a child who is a Singapore Citizen below the age of 12 years staying in the same household as the employer; or
    * the employer/ co-residing spouse is a Singapore Citizen aged 65 years or above; or
    * the employer has a parent, parent-in-law, grandparent or grandparent-in-law who is
    * a Singapore Citizen aged 65 years or above staying in the same household as th employer. 

  

Now there is a basic assumption underlying this type of duel pricing, and that is that foreign workers can afford more than locals.  But what, for example if the foreign worker is a helper (FDW)? Or is there a whole other class of fee structure and what is allowed and not allowed if you're a FDW?

A garden to bash rocks in ....

These days I see my kids for meal times and music practise.  For the rest of the time I may as not have kids.  There's a great post over at Grit's about what to do with your kids during the summer vacation, she should know being the kids 24/7 queen (how the hell?). I think it's all a great deal simpler, albeit awfully less parent involved and educational.  It boils down to having one large jungle like garden, one swimming pool (and kids who have been swimming since they were 6 weeks old so are water safe), two bicycles, one step, one funny turtle mover thing and an assortment of tools that you'd forgotten you had.

I emerge from the sorting session in a state of OCD bliss and blink in the sunlight, and say "what's up?", to the two huddled over rocks with their builder bums sticking out of sun-suits that seem to be getting alarmingly small - when did they grow so much?  They have an extremely large hammer, well, beyond hammer really, I think it was used to drive stakes into the heart of witches previously.  They're bashing rocks they've found in the garden and on our travels in the last month ("lady, what you got there in that suitcase?"  "Well sir, actually it's rocks.  No, we don't buy souvenirs from foreign countries, my kids pick up rocks.  And then insist on bringing them back with us.")

Anyway, there is progress being made in reconstructing our lives.  We are now the owners of matching bicycles for mum and dad, and daughter has a newish bike as hers were sold in HK (she'd outgrown her last one, and we still had her baby bike lying around as well).  We found a viola teacher for a trial lesson and he directed us to the music shop, we got the viola and the cello.  The cello is OKish, the viola less so (they stock the Eastman brand which is basically made in China under American control. I'll try to find the article about the hows and whys of instruments made in China).  I realise how spoilt we'd been in HK with the combination of HK Strings, and then when my son got bigger, the kind loan of Sorlo's daughter's violin to him.  They were both really lovely sounding instruments.  My daughter played the cello and declared it OK, it's not bad, quite a rich sound.  The viola (well violin with viola strings as he's still to small for the smallest size viola - if you can find one) - well, we both kind of grimaced the first time he played it.  It was just kind of dead and not very kind on the ears.  He's incredibly sensitive to that kind of thing.  I was playing trio with them and he came up to my cello and asked if it was a very expensive one?  I said relatively to what money we had at the time we bought it, yes.  It's got such a nice sound he goes on, when I listen to it, I really want to hear more.  The second practise session yesterday went a bit better, and he declared it not too bad, but still not great.  I explained to him what I'd heard (is this myth or reality any of you instrumentalists out there?), that instruments and living things and that the way you play them and if you play them can be the difference between their sound life and sound death?  I was told that as a student by someone who lent me a very nice cello to play on, she'd bought it for her daughter who was still to young for it, and didn't want it to be unplayed in the years that she was growing.  So I repeated this to him, and we agreed we'd stick with it and then if it really didn't get better after a few months we'd go begging Sorlo for a re-loan or try and find a better rental for him.

Ridiculous?  No, I think that a good instrument and a good teacher is not throwing away money.

Further progress?  The brother of a friend of mine who I met briefly 3 years ago emailed me when he heard via his brother that I was living here.  He's also here, so we'll meet up.  Other people are coming out of the woodwork as well.  I mailed everyone in my address book my change of contact details, did a huge clean up of my google/gmail address book, after all the bounced mails, Linkedin then also sent everyone an invite (including a few people I'd rather it had not!!), let's not talk about the whole role of the i-family stuffing up synchronisation.  And now I'm getting all sorts of mails from people I'd forgotten, didn't know lived here etc.  Which is rather nice.

Each customer has their own little book...

We also found a grocer.  An old fashioned grocer.  A grocer of the old fashioned type that didn't even exist when I was a child, except in my grandparent's rural farming community.   You just phone up before 11 am and they do same day delivery.  No website? No website.  No delivery charge, and when we went there it seemed no prices either.  In fact I don't think they're even used to customers actually physically coming around.  We checked for a few items and they were basically more or less the price of ColdStorage, but the fruit and veg was exceptionally good and fresh.  I wanted to share some pictures, but you'll have to come back for those.  Another mac woe story - trying to share my photos and music with my newly added other users on the mac...

Today I have some interviews with helpers lined up - not so easy here.  A country of slaves and serfs. I'm going to blog separately on that, but in the mean time, go and have a visit to Spike - there's a veritable polemic with hundreds of comments on the helper right of abode question there!

And the dreaded visit to Ikea just cannot be postponed any longer.

What do you want?

I'm reaching a cross roads here.  I've just added another Singapore blog to my blog roll, and obviously I'm living here and now blogging about here.  But I think the most of my readers are located in Hong Kong, and were reading me due to the fact that I was blogging about local issues.

My options are to stop blogging on "Gweipo" and start a new blog with a new name for Singapore or to put Singapore related stuff in a new blog and general stuff in Gweipo. Or to stop blogging and start living. Or something else. Or what do you suggest?

Who are you anyway?  I was rather surprised the other day when I received an email from someone asking about dentists.  A male someone.  My assumption (ass out of you and me) was that most of my readers were female SAHM (stay at home mums) like myself.  He pointed out that I'd be surprised at how many men read my blog.  Goes back to what Joyce was saying about male and female styles of writing.  I haven't had time to do the test, but will do so now (it's only 3.57am, yup, still jet lagged, nearly a week after arriving).

Hahahahaha, turns out I'm androgynous!  I'm both weak male and weak female.  Their conclusion is that I'm probably European ...


Genre: Informal
  Female = 1526
  Male   = 1809
  Difference = 283; 54.24%
  Verdict: Weak MALE


Weak emphasis could indicate European.



Genre: Formal
  Female = 1051
  Male   = 1039
  Difference = -12; 49.71%
  Verdict: Weak FEMALE


Weak emphasis could indicate European.


I'll put in a little survey in a side box, if you don't mind taking a few seconds to tick it off and let me know what you, my current readers want.  If you're not in the mood, drop me a comment or suggestion.

apple affair leaves honeymoon into marriage reality

OK, all you guys who nudged me into going the apple route - help me out of these issues!

I think that one can plot anything new along that continuum of initial honey moon, reality bites, acceptance etc etc. And so too is my (and my family's) experience with Apple.

I've been relatively happy with my MacBook Pro - it took a while to get out of various Window PC habits and assumptions, but we've been ticking along nicely. And the ipad was a fairly nice addition to the family, followed by an iphone when my HTC died in July. And then? Familiarity breeds contempt? Putting too much strain on the relationship? Expecting too much too soon? Well, at the price, I think one can be entitled to expect quite a bit. So I'm going to tell you where you're failing me Apple.

It's the little things. But just like caps off toothpaste, washing next to the laundry basket and the toilet seat left up, it's the little things that accumulate to annoy.

1. I wanted to upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard in order to upgrade to Lion. You won't let me do this in the comfort and privacy of my own home. Even if I'm quite happy to pay everything to do it on-line (I'm not looking for freebies or discounts) to do so, I have to get physical discs for Snow Leopard before I can do an upgrade to Lion. And you can't get the darn things. Anywhere. So you're causing me to waste my time and get aggrevated.
And it's your fault in the first place that I didn't get Snow Leopard, as you stuffed up on the Chinese component going backwards in the functionality, just as the whole world woke up to the wonders and importance of Chinese.

2. My husband spent hours inputting all his addresses and phone numbers from various sources into his new i-pad 2. After one entry he pressed "done" and the goose was cooked. No fried. No completely burnt. All his contacts disappeared. Every single last one of them. And the last backup he'd done was 500 contacts ago before he started the epic update. And you can't say you didn't know about this problem. People have been alerting you to it for months. And you've been ignoring the issue and blaming the user or whatever for months. This is a major stuff up and reliability problem.  Particularly if you want the business market who is used to the reliability of Blackberry.  And who don't sync and backup for days on end when they're on the road.

3.  Where the heck did that go?
Most device users have become used to being nanny'd.  As in, "you've just pressed delete, are you sure? are you really really sure? If you say yes, it's gone, gone, gone, forever."
Now one of the things I appreciate about the i-pad/i-phone is the pared down simplicity of things, windows was getting really really bloated with far to many unnecessary complications and options.  But it's ridiculously easy to delete an email without meaning to on the i-phone / i-pad and heavens knows where it goes to and if anyone can tell me where to find and reinstate it, please do so!
There's no "oops, let me get that back", it's more like over the cliff and splat.

4. It may just be me, but ...
After a rather unfortunate attempt at synchronising my husband and my devices on the MacBook using the same log-in (why can't you maintain 2 address books on the same device without needing a separate log in?  Just add an option in the sync to say - sync to which address book....) I opened a new log in for him.  But then of course he couldn't access "my" music and "my" photos.  He's a sentimental kind of guy who rather likes flicking through the photos on the i-pad in down time, so he wasn't happy with this.  So I looked up how to sort this out.  Put the music and photos into the shared folder.  But then I needed to populate the music and photos on each of our log-ins. And it seems it then re-copies everything to each of our folders, leading to a huge memory crunch.
Now this really must be me doing something wrong - or at least I hope it is. Can anyone help out there?

5. The dreaded vault
After the rather unfortunate incident with contacts and double sync on one log-in, I opened him a new log-in on the laptop, and think I ticked the wrong box (out of fear), as now every time he logs out, it takes about 2 hours for the machine to back him up before I can log back in.  I don't know how the heck to un-tick that box.  You guys are darn lucky that my husband is not a violent angry type and was rather sanguine about losing all his contacts (after initial controlled anger and frustration he said "obviously not meant to be.  If I've lost all my contacts 2x due to 2 separate incidents, I'm obviously not meant to have them.  If they need me, they'll have to find me")

6. What did you say again?
Let's face it, as on all devices that try to be all things to all people, the parts are less than the sum of the whole.
The i-phone as a phone is not great.  We both have more reception problems than on other devices, even using the same service provider and same sim-card.

I'll stop there, because anything else after those 6 start to get a bit petty. I know some of this is me.  I know I need to do less on the fly and be less INTJ, spend some time acquainting myself with the ins and outs and finer details for my toys.  But that's not supposed to be the point of Apple. That's not the premise on which it's been built.  Time to take a visit to Jerry and her service department.