Having a Chinese helper

Zhou Jie from Sichuan province

I hesitate to write this because it will sound so ungrateful to some people, but having a helper is not as wonderful as it sounds. What I mean by this is that having hired help in China is not comparable to having a housekeeper or a nanny in America. Hiring a Chinese helper or bao mu as they are called is hiring someone from the countryside to come work as a housekeeper. We’ve had two since we came here. They have both been really nice wonderful people. However, they are not always the best housekeepers. My current helper is Zhou Jie and she is about the nicest person I’ve ever met. No matter how hard I try to get her to separate the colors when she does laundry, use cleaning solutions for cleaning (only organic ones of course) or dry dishes before putting them away or store meat in the fridge and keep raw meat separate from other vegetables it really is no use. She comes from a village where there was no electricity most of her life and her house has never had a fridge. All food was kept out and uncovered. I don’t even know if these things are that important, but I find myself cleaning after she cleans, redoing laundry, covering and storing meat properly, etc. She basically uses one wet rag to wipe the whole house down and the other day I saw her cleaning the toilet with my dish towel. Which I’m sure has happened many times before.

Cleaning with her wet rag

The one thing she does that is truly helpful to me is she cooks. I have nothing to say about the cooking as she makes Chinese food and I have no experience in that area. The food is greasy, but tasty. She buys the produce and meat every day so it is fresh. So two meals a day, I just sit down and eat. Now that is a luxury I admit.