Saving face, by lying to my face

Ahhh, what would life here be without some more growing pains?

My newest "I-just-can't-wrap-my-head-around-it" cultural divide is that of what I, and most westerners would consider lying. Like bold faced lies.

As in, not telling the truth to "save face."

I've mentioned before that the Chinese culture has this innate need to "save face", or to not bring shame to themselves or their families. This in turn, means that at times, they will lie to protect themselves from losing face, and also, as a "courtesy" to the person they are lying to, as to not upset them (assuming the person being lied to doesn't find out).

But what happens when we, as Westerners find out we are being lied to?

We (or I), take it personally. Especially when it is someone that I trust, and have come to love as a part of our family. My insides hurt. My heart is heavy. I'm sad.

Our ayi has been dishonest with us. This being said, I also know she has a good heart. I know she cares about my son, and wants to keep her job with us. I'm contradicting myself, aren't I? How could someone who lies, actually care? 

 I think her recent lie ( about dropping my husband's shirt off at the cleaners, when she really hadn't) was a small harmless one that really was just an inconvenience to us. It by no way put us in danger. It simply meant that my husband took an hour out of his day to go retrieve something from the shirt at the cleaners who had no record of receiving the shirt that day--even though the ayi claimed she had dropped it off. When called out about it, she admitted she had not dropped the shirt off at the cleaners that day. Had she been honest right away, my husband could've saved himself a trip to the cleaners and she could have just retrieved the item from my husband's shirt and brought it to us the next day....but she didn't. Instead, she lied.

The lie that makes me lose trust more than anything is something that I've mulled over in my brain for the past few weeks. Before we left for the US and then Bali,  I specifically told her that she must come each day and clean our floors and care for our cat. Caring for the cat entailed cleaning the litter box, throwing the waste outside (gotta be specific here, so it doesn't stank up our house) and feeding the cat food and clean water daily. 

NZ and I have been so lucky to have friends here that are cat lovers. They sweetly offered to check in every few days to snuggle with Beaver while we were away. It was brought to my attention by my friend who had stopped in, that the same cat vomit was on our floor two days in a row, indicating that the ayi did not come as arranged. My friend actually stopped in twice in the same day before alerting me to her concerns about our ayi not coming.  When we told her [ayi] that we knew she hadn't come each day as instructed (because of the lingering cat vomit and furballs around the house) she lied and said she went in the morning and that my friend must have missed her. Here's my beef--even if she had come in the morning, she still neglected to clean up after the cat (the floors)....so, in my western eyes, she didn't do her job. She didn't hold up her end of the agreement. She lied.

It's hard to know where to go next. What steps to take. How to deal with this cultural difference. Some of the articles I have read basically say westerners will never fully comprehend why Chinese people lie and do not feel that it is immoral. Some articles claim they tell lies to save face, to not rock the boat, or to keep peace. I have to step back and remind myself as I bounce back and forth between anger and hurt that I need to make an attempt to understand and respect the culture of the people I live amongst, but it is oh so difficult. I was raised to believe all lies are bad. 

Perhaps we will need to sit down and have a talk with her (translated, of course) and explain that we won't be mad for her telling the truth, but that if we catch her lying on one more occasion, she will lose her job with us. I really don't want another ayi. I want her. I just want her to be honest. As I said before, we love her. To our  knowledge she has never stolen anything from us, has been wonderful with our son, and keeps our home sparkling. 

So, what's a family to do? Accept it as a TIC (This Is China) situation, or take it to heart like a Westerner and give her the three strikes you're out warning?

Fresh Eggs

Last week, our ayi returned from a week off for the New Year. She had gone home to her village to see her children and family. She hails from a small village in the Anhui province, a few hours from here. From what I understand, she does not get to see her family very frequently because she has to work.

 

We missed her while she was away.

 

She has become such a part of our day to day lives.

 

When she returned last Monday, she came bearing gifts.

 

She handed me a shoe box.

 

Shoes? Oh this ought to be good.

 

Inside the shoebox, I was surprised to find about 2 dozen farm fresh eggs padded with hay.

 

What a treat!

 

 

Do I really have to share?

 

 

 

Grateful: Day 4: Liu

Today, being Sunday, I'm looking at floors that need a good sweep.

This is a task I dread, but thankfully, I only have to do it on the weekends, because  my ayi comes Mondays through Fridays and spoils me with clean floors every day before she leaves.

When NZ initially proposed that we hire an ayi, I thought it was absurd. I do love housework, and even love doing floors at home-but having our cat here as an indoor cat---turned out to be a game changer for me. He's black. He has lots of fur. He sheds. Everywhere. I felt like my attempts to sweep were futile when we arrived. All I was doing was pushing fur balls around the house.

Enter, Liu. Our ayi.

She's got magical floor cleaning powers.

Seriously.

Every single day, she sweeps, dusts and mops our floors.

And they sparkle.

Nobody would know a cat even lives here.



Liu and Sal playing with his cardboard box "car"

But I am thankful for Liu even more so for her sweet disposition, her willingness to teach me vocabulary when I point to something and ask,  and our charading back and forth and laughing at one another. I'm most touched by her love of the boy. She's an extra set of eyes, she's a get-down-on-his-level-and-play kinda woman, and the love she has for him is mutual. Sal loves Liu. She actually gets more of his sloppy open mouth kisses than I do. He can go from screaming basket case to smiling ear to ear when she rings the apartment to be let in. He adores her, and this is important to me.

We have had her working for us for 5 months now, and I can't picture life without her in it. She's really become a part of our daily life here, and I am ever so grateful for her help.

The Damn Bastard

I've got a secret.

 

I haven't told anyone about it, and I lead on like I know what I'm doing...

 

..but...

 

(gulp)

 

..I don't really know how to use our washer/dryer combo.



The Damn Bastard

At first glance, he's so pretty and new..and OMG how exciting to be able to dry our clothes in the same machine that washes them..no more transferring from one machine to the other! But that excitement wore off by the time we took a maiden voyage together.

After FOUR, yes FOUR, hours of washing and drying, I opened up the machine to almost dry clothes. No biggie, I'll just pop them back in and add some time to finish drying...

And that's when I discovered that in order to dry our clothes, I would have to split my larger load into two smaller ones and run them through the wash cycle again....which would mean FOUR more hours for one load, and another FOUR for the second..and by this time my clothes would have taken a full 12 hours to clean!!!!!

This is no good.

So, I figured I must be doing something wrong. I asked my ayi to help.

Big mistake asking the woman who chooses to wash her rags in our muck sink vs using a washing machine. But, she tried to help out anyhow. She punched some different cycle buttons ( ah ha! there is a 50 minute ECO cycle option) like she knew what she was doing, and I thought to myself, alright, she rocks! That enthusiasm quickly faded as I watched her pour about half a gallon of TIDE , and at least a cup of softener in the bleach compartment...OH NO, this can't turn out well.....And with that load, I witnessed bubble-palooza.

Thank goodness our machine is outdoors. She not only cleaned my clothes ( which required two more cycles of rinsing--more on that later), but our floor as well. She's so sweet though--she came to show me the bubble fest and we both laughed and shrugged our shoulders.

Brie. Fail.

Ayi. Fail.

And, with her help, our load of laundry required two more cycles with NO added detergent just to get the over-soaped clothing residue free. She hadnt' set the dryer option, so thankfully that saved us some time, and after our three wash cycles were done, and my clothes still wet, but clean...I attempted one last time to dry them in the dryer.

 So, you know what this means....My clothes got washed a FOURTH time for the day, and I selected the longest drying time available..this time BEFORE my wash cycle started..

This. Has. Got. To. Work.( and I have go to go to bed)

..Seriously, who spends all day wrestling with one load of clothes? Apparently, this girl does.

The next morning I woke, expecting to open my machine to damp clothing, but to my surprise, they were dry!

Hallelujah, ya damn bastard.

Pink slipped

Yesterday afternoon, when Nick opened the door to let our ayi in, he was greeted by Liu waving a pink slip of paper in his face, and charading to him what it meant--which didn't work out to well. She kept waving it in the air, then pointing at it, then at him, then pretending to write something and make a phone call..then came more pointing at the slip, followed by more writing, and well, you can see where this is going...

..right to a call to our translator, Irene.

Nick got Irene on the phone, and the Liu on the other end. After some animated and loud conversation ( have I mentioned how loud Liu speaks? She's loud.), Liu passes the phone back to Nick, along with the slip of paper and our translator tells him that it was afixed to our door, and it is from the gas company.
And just what did the gas company want?

They wanted us to write down our gas use for the month.

Yes. That's right.

We monitor our own gas use and tell them how much we used.

We asked our ayi to help us find the meter and she went to the kitchen and started to disassemble our cabinets under the stovetop! After Nick helped her remove a portion of our cabinet, we realized our meter wasn't under the stove. It took 5 minutes and three adults searching--Nick finally found ours outside on the fire escape.

Of course.

Outside on a fire escape is the perfect place for a gas meter.

26 units.

Our ayi then takes the slip of paper from Nick and charades that she will take it after he writes down the amount used.

Take it where?

(points to pink slip, then to self, then to door)

Yes, we get that YOU want to take it somewhere, but where?

Another call to the translator, and we are told that our ayi wanted to take it to the gas company for us. Nick explained the the translator that we have our utilities on automatic withdrawl from the bank, and the translator told Nick to call the bank and report with the units of gas used so they can pay it for us.

This will happen monthly..This whole pink slip on the door, and us having to report our own useage to the gas company and bank.

It seems so foreign to me---the trust in us to report the accurate useage, and trust in the bank to enter the correct useage amount and issue payment, etc. At home, a meter man comes and reads our accessible meter monthly and then reports it to the gas company, where they in turn mail us a bill and we pay accordingly.

I was talking to a couple of friends today, about our pink slip ordeal, and we laughed because we all have different experiences with the monthly slips. One girl says the meter man comes to her door and comes in and checks her meter, which is under her stove, and the other girl says she also gets a slip on her door. She writes the amount of use on the slip, and sticks it back on the door. A day or two later, the meter man picks it up and the money is withdrawn from her bank account.

One of these months, we will figure it out.

Or not.

Thank goodness for translators!

A smile and a nod, and we'll figure it out later

It's 2:00p and our ayi has arrived.

NZ has been searching for iPad apps that can help us communicate with her ( although at this point,I am convinced it would be quicker for us to just learn Mandarin). We thought we had found one, but by the sound of things, it's not going so well with google translate. It has worked quite well with our driver, so we had high hopes it would help Liu convey her questions to us.

Such is not the case.

I'm usually the only one home when she comes to clean. She and I play a weird version of charades that usually helps us communicate, and if I use google translate, she understands it enough--but we're struggling when it comes to her trying to tell me something. On Monday afternoon, she washed the bed linens that I had just washed the day before.... all because I couldn't explain to her that I had just washed them, and could we please wait two days til Wednesday?

So, clean sheets it was. I really shouldn't complain about having fresh sheets now, should I?

Yesterday, I typed out to her that Sal and I would be right back--we were going downstairs to get our mail. Before I could grab the door, she grabbed my arm and was leading me out onto the balcony to show me that it was raining and charaded that I needed an umbrella and Sal needed something as well. What does he need? His own umbrella? A hat? Huh? No hablo Chinese.

Finally she lead me to his room and showed me his drawer of jackets.

A jacket?

It's JUNE. A very humid 80 degrees. A jacket? Really?

She held the jacket as if I should put it on him. I had to grab my iPad ( I could have been down to get the mail and back already!) to type out that our mailbox was inside the lobby. We would not be going outside in the rain.

"Hao" (okay)

And after that 5 minute exchange, Sal and I were off to get our mail, jacket and umbrella-less, and were back in under 3 minutes.

One thing is for sure, she's looking out for us. So far, so good. I like her, and the fact that she will rattle off in Chinese like I totally understand her. I give her the whole " I-have-no-idea-what-you-just-said, so-just-go-ahead-and-do-it-until- I-learn-how-to-tell-you-otherwise" smile and away she goes to wash our sheets again.

We will get this whole lost in translation thing down. We'll find an app that works for her ( she slows down her pronunciation and YELLS into the iPad, which makes her word "rag" come up as "pig", etc.) She must think we're really crazy. Those dang Americans, why don't they learn the language?

Aye, Aye, Ayi

Tomorrow we meet our ayi. As a perk for uprooting Sal and me from our home sweet home and all the household duties that went with it, NZ has hired an ayi to work for us. Ayi is the term used over here for a household helper; someone who may cook, clean, launder, run errands or even watch children.

He went to the local agency yesterday and we've been appointed a 41 year-old woman with a clean bill of health and no problems with the law. I guess that's good enough, right? I have no idea what makes a good housekeeper, or how to "teach" someone how to clean "my way". So, for now, I've made a list of duties I'd like to have her take over, or share with me ( I actually do enjoy some housework).

It's really weird for me to think of someone else doing what has been my "job" for so long. However, having her here to help will allow me to spend as much time as possible raising Sal and making sure Nick has everything he could possibly need. It will also allow for me to Immerse myself in my sewing (during nap times of course) and other things like working out that I enjoy but rarely have time for these days.

We're also hoping that she will interact with Sal and speak mandarin to him. I'm not sold (at all) on leaving him alone with her, but I do hope that in the few hours she is with us each day, that she and Sal form some sort of relationship so that he will head back to California bilingual.

I joked with Nick this morning that he might be creating a monster...I might like having help so much that I'll expect a housekeeper when we return to the states! He then jokingly replied, " I can call and cancel her. It's not too late.", lol.