2001: A Thai Odyssey – Chapter 3

If you want to go straight to Chapter 4, feel free!

The Trials of Having a Maid – or The Gentle Art of Saying "Go Home!" (May - Jun 2001)

It might seem a little strange to say that having a maid can be difficult. After all, what could be better than having someone in your house who does all the cleaning, washing, cooking and shopping (for food and such like) and who is able to look after the kids as well?

Well, it ain't all beer and skittles. Especially when your maid speaks very little English - and that is pretty much limited to "hello" and "goodbye". Even Tim has difficulty communicating, partly because his Thai is far from perfect and partly because, despite all the areas in which he has some level of linguistic competence, he knows very little Thai for use in a domestic situation. It seemed that the Australian Defence Force School of Language thought it was important for him to know military ranks, Thai history, geography, culture and the components of a rifle, but not the words for broom, bedsheet, cupboard, fridge and so on.

We were nervous about the idea of getting a maid right from the start. Everyone gets a maid so not having one was not really an option. Apart from anything, we get an allowance to cover the costs involved so by not having a maid we would be denying someone a job that we can offer with no cost to ourselves, a bit like international aid. We were therefore committed to employing someone, but when we arrived we had no idea about how to go about it.

"Don't worry about it!" we were told with sickening frequency. Basically this meant "We did it ages ago, we worried about it at the time, but then we got a maid and everything was wonderful!"

Then one day, there was a knock at the door.

A middle-aged Thai woman stood there. "You want maid." (Note that spoken Thai does not use a questioning tone to indicate that that which, when written, could be a statement is actually a question, so this sounded more like an accusation than a request for confirmation.)

Tim said: - Um.

This was to give himself time to think. He didn't want to give the woman false hope that she would be employed on the spot, so after a few seconds he said something more definite. - Ah, maybe. Who are you?

The woman went on to explain, in a mixture of Thai and English, that she was the Assistant Defence Attache's maid and not looking for a job for herself but rather for her friend. Could she come over sometime? Tim made a command decision and said fine, how about Saturday afternoon?

A couple of days passed and then, on Saturday afternoon, the doorbell rang again. Tim was surprised to see that the visitor was not a female as expected, and was not even Thai. It was in fact Dave Eyland from downstairs. He had just been visited by an aspiring maid and wanted to know if we wanted to interview her as well. The more the merrier, Tim thought and invited Dave to bring the girl up a short while later.

A couple of minutes later, the originally scheduled maid turned up along with her friend. The maid walked in, looked around and sat down at the table with us.

Now, you would think that with the couple of days notice, and with our worries in this area, that we would have been prepared with a list of questions and some outlines of what we wanted from a maid. Of course, we weren't. The only things that we had decided were that we didn't want to have a maid living-in, although we wanted the maid to stay over on Friday nights, and that we didn't want the maid to work on weekends, we wanted to have Saturdays and Sundays to ourselves.

So, we sat there, having said hello and so forth, and the maid stared back at us. We were daunted.

- Do you speak much English? "Yes." - Aha. Um.

Then, a reprieve. The doorbell rang, the cavalry - in the form of Dave, his Thai wife Sarinya and the prospective maid - had arrived. We ushered them in and it was immediately obvious that the attitude of this other potential maid was hugely different to that of the one currently glaring at us from the opposite side of the table. When she, and her sister, came into the room, they were deferential and immediately sat on the floor, despite there being sufficient space on one of the couches. Dave and Sarinya took up positions on a couch, an audience to our embarrassment but also moral support.

We rallied and began asking sensible questions. Can she cook? Has she had experience with children? Was she happy to act as a child-minder? Was she happy with the plans we had regarding accommodation? How long had she been a maid? How old was she? What was her family background? Basically she was experienced, spoke English and had experience with farang but didn't really give the impression that she liked the idea of looking after kids.

Her problem was that she was used to being Number One, which is the head maid, in a household with two maids. In this situation, Number One co-ordinates, does the high profile, high status tasks and the drudgery is delegated to the secondary maid. We were happily getting along with no maids at this time so we certainly had no plans for two maids.

Apart from that, she was scary. There was a palpable sense that you were being judged and found wanting. Talking to her, we realised that her service would be on her conditions only, we would have had to modify our habits and preferences to her suiting. We were so glad that, although this dragon woman was our first exposure to a Thai maid, we were able to talk to a far different example immediately after we had sent the first one packing.

Som, the second interviewee, had to be coaxed to sit at the table with us and looked to be uncomfortable there. Our difficulties with interviewing her were not due to our being daunted by her, but more our embarrassment at her discomfort and due to the fact that she spoke no English whatsoever.

At this point in time, Tim had not started studying and felt that his Thai had deteriorated while he had hardly used it for a month and a half. Fortunately Dave and Sarinya were able to tell us about her background and so the interview consisted of checking whether she could cook ("no"), what experience she had had with farang ("none"), what experience she had had as a maid ("none"), what she currently did ("cleaner in a hospital") and would she have problems with our rather sketchy suggested work schedule ("arai kor dai" - whatever, meaning she would work when we wanted her to).

We sent Som and her sister (who is a maid for another compound resident) and discussed things with Dave and Sarinya.

The first woman, by Thai standards was extremely rude, according to Sarinya. The way she sat, the way she talked and the way she looked at us was all insulting and inappropriate. She, and her friend, were part of the maid-mafia, a loose organisation of cronies who promote their friends and put pressure on other prospective maids to not apply for positions. In Thailand, anyone who is assisted in the finding of a job will pay the person assisting them half of their first month's salary so there is a lot riding on these interviews. Residents can feel very pressured at times to take a maid because of the possible ramifications if they don't - basically by being made to feel unwelcome by the local staff.

Som, who was really nice in comparison, was not what we really wanted because she couldn't cook, had no experience with farang and spoke no English. This last fact would make it really hard for Kajsa who would have most dealings with her. Still, she was keen. However, the other, constantly recurring, piece of advice we had been given was to not rush into getting a maid. Better to wait and then get someone who suits really well, rather than rushing the decision and having someone you don't want in your house.

So, we waited.

There were a couple of other nibbles of interest. Probably part of the reason that we weren't inundated was due to the actions of the maid-mafia. But there was one other maid who turned up and spoke with Kajsa. She was supposed to come back and talk with both of us but never made it.

Eventually we talked ourselves into accepting the fact that we could work around the problem of language associated with hiring Som. Part of our argument was that it would be a good way for Tim to practice and for Kajsa to learn. The kids would be exposed to more Thai as well, something that is lacking when we live in an Australian compound in an area with many Westerners. The greater argument was that we wanted to avoid having to go through the process of interviewing person after person. So, despite her many inadequacies, we decided to hire Som.

We should make it clear right now that any inadequacies Som has had been overstated.

We told her sister on a Friday that we would like to hire Som, at least for a one month trial period, thinking that we would sort out a time for her to start the following week. Som arrived early on Monday morning and set straight to work, doing all the washing, cleaning the house and ending the day by cooking us a delicious dinner. No negotiation on how much we were to pay her. No questions on what time she needed to work until. She was like a machine in her efficiency.

We were fortunate in that Sarinya had prepared a sheet detailing what work she wanted her maid to complete (in Thai) and had asked Kajsa if she wanted a version modified to our requirements. This worked out quite well.

Although that is not to say that everything has been perfect.

Som's cooking is excellent, she has a wide variety of dishes that she can prepare and she normally prepares food for the children separately if the dish is likely to be too spicy for them. She has tried to learn Western cooking from her sister, normally this consists of a roast dinner. Tim has recently asked her not to cook Western for us. Partly because she cooks the food early and it sits waiting for dinner time, something that is okay for Thai food but makes a roast somewhat unappetising and partly because both of us like to cook, so if we want Western food, we'll cook it ourselve. In place we will try to arrange for her to help cook for another family who actually prefers not to eat that much Thai (and are not interested in cooking for themselves).

But ... having another person in the house takes some adjustment. Especially when this person is a menial servant, and one who you have difficulty communicating with. You can't walk around the house however you like. You are intensely aware that she is working hard for quite a small sum by Australian standard while you are apparently getting paid bazillions and don't appear to be doing any real work. On top of that, you are just not used to being deferred to the way that you are here. It is actually a little embarrassing to have someone duck their head way down because she is passing you and you are sitting.

Then there is the washing. A few of our items are a little worse for wear because Som is not used to working a washing machine and has done some strange things, like washing all the bath mats together at a few thousand degrees so that they are now all a consistent shade of green. You have to be careful about where you leave what, because if you have worn something then it gets washed. Even if it was only worn for a couple of hours, or if it is dry-cleaning. Putting it in a bag doesn't work because she'll still find it. Now we have a special space in one of the cupboards for hiding things we don't want washed.

Bath times have occasionally been amusing as Som tries to help and Kalle is at the stage where he has become a little more self-conscious. At least in the bath. One night we were in the process of putting the kids to bed and Som was very concerned because we had obviously forgotten something. The kids hadn't had a bath. Well, yes, they had a bath the previous night but Thais are fastidious when it comes to bathing. They probably think we Westerners are disgustingly unclean because some of us only shower once a day. Who knows what they think of the English.

Probably the issue that we had the most problem with in the beginning was with time.

The sheet detailing the work that we wanted Som to perform began by stating the hours that we wanted her to work, basically Monday to Friday 9 to 5 plus an overnight on Fridays.

On the first day we had to tell Som to go home long after 6, she stayed around while we ate dinner then put everything in the dishwasher and then helped with the kids' bath.

We told her that she could go home when she wanted. We then told her she could go home now. We then said she should go home. Then we said she must go home, but still she stayed. Eventually we did get her to go, although just what it was that achieved this miracle is unclear.

For the following two weeks she was always staying for a long time after she should have gone home. We didn't fuss about it because we realised that this job was very important to her and she wanted to make a good impression so we would keep her on after the trial. But her devotion to her work is far beyond the call of duty, often more than we want or need.

The incident that stands out the most happened about two or three weeks after we hired Som. We have been invited to dinner at other people's houses and wanted to repay in kind with a dinner party. Kajsa in particular was looking forward to preparing a meal and had decided to make a cheesecake for desert. Tim's job was to talk to Som about preparing a platter of fruit, organise music and wine and look after the guests when they arrived, etc. Plus all the drudgery that happens before and after a dinner party that is not directly related to food preparation, of course.

At some stage we thought it would be nice if Som made a couple of entree like things that we could snack on while waiting for the main event. To that end Tim asked Som to prepare some "ahahn wahng" (snack food) as well as preparing some fruit and a few vases of flowers before she left on Saturday morning. She said that she would go to the market that day and Tim didn't see a problem with that. Som wanted to know how many people were coming and she was told eight in all.

So, on the morning of the dinner party, Kajsa was looking forward to getting the kitchen to herself and dusting off some of the recipes that she hadn't had the opportunity to use for a while, especially the cheesecake. By the time we emerged from the bedroom, Som had gone off to the market. We decided that we would head out to check out a temple after breakfast, then do some shopping and come back sometime after noon by which time Som should have finished her work and gone home.

When we got back a little after midday, Som was still very much inhabiting the kitchen. She was preparing a platter of fruit, and what a platter it was. Despite being told that we were having eight people at dinner, Som was in the final stages of laying out enough fruit to feed two football teams. It was ridiculous, we took days to finish what she prepared even though we gave about half of it away.

Worst still, she had bought stuff to make deserts. Not just one desert. Three different types from memory, again enough to feed a couple of dozen people or more. Tim realised that Som had listened as Tim said "ahahn wahng" and not quite understood, hearing instead "ahahn wahn" which means sweet food, or desert. Kajsa was not happy.

Kajsa got progressively less happy as Som stayed longer and longer. Tim went into the kitchen numerous times to tell Som that she needed to go home, to no avail. Som just said, oh no, she didn't need to go home.

Tim retreated and went to the dictionary to find a way of explaining to her that we wanted to have some time alone.

Unfortunately this is a tricky concept. Being alone really means that there is no-one else around, but we use it to mean "I don't want you (or whoever) to be here". Otherwise, how can you be alone with someone else? Additionally, when Tim looked up the words which correlate with the English "alone" he only found words that meant "lonely", "deserted", "abandoned" and "having no friends".

There is no real concept in Thai that being by yourself can be a good thing. That means that a conversation with a Thai can follow these lines: "Who are you going to the market with?" - No-one, it's easier if I go alone, then I can look at what I want to look at and don't need to wait for someone else or hurry up when I don't want to. "Oh, in that case I'll come with you." (A real conversation just like this was held by another Thai language student.)

So, Tim thought, let's try "space" and "time". We want some space to ourselves and Kajsa wants some time to herself in the kitchen.

Space is a concept that covers a multitude of sins and it is hard to pin down which Thai word relates to the meaning that we have when we say "Leave me alone, I need some space." Rest assured that it isn't "nya thi" or "phyn thi". Tim carefully explained that Kajsa needed some space and Som seemed to understand, although not enough to grasp the further implication that, as it was nearing 3 o'clock, she really had to go home.

On the following Monday, Som proudly showed us that she had catered to our need for space. She had cleared out a whole shelf from the cupboard, more than enough space for whatever it was we needed it for.

Of course part of the problem here is that it must be incomprehensible to Som that we feel crowded by her in any way. She probably lives in a house or flat which is at most one third the size of ours and she and her husband shares it with at least one other family. We have separate bedrooms, three bathrooms and a huge area outside to walk around in. How can one person in such abundant surroundings possibly constitute crowding?

And then there was time. Tim managed to make it worse here because he tried to say that Kajsa wanted time to herself without having to worry about what Som was doing and so on. He tried to express this by saying Kajsa wanted "wela wahng" or free time. Of course, this translates much better to mean time in which you are not obliged to do anything. Given that Kajsa had not taken a job here and had a full-time maid, it must have sounded really weird to Som that she wanted even more spare time! Som was probably working extra hard for a while after that, in the fear that there were some tasks that poor Kajsa was being forced to waste her precious time with.

Eventually, after three hours of goading, Som went home, leaving us with two mountains of fruit and a few bowls of desert. Kajsa, having almost got to the stage where we would have to sack Som and either do without a maid or find a far less enthusiastic one, was very disappointed with the way that the afternoon had gone. Tim was just relieved that he finally managed to put enough Thai words together in the right order to get Som to go home.

After that, we came to a better understanding. Som has been going home at a reasonable time and we have even got her to come later in the morning on Fridays (the first time we tried to get her to come late she did so, by less than half an hour, but now she comes between 10 and 12).

More recently our conditions changed a little. School holidays were coming up, a period when many maids get to see their children who are otherwise cared for by grand-parents. Although Som's child is still too young for school we thought it would be nice for her to get to see her son a little more often. So, what we said was that during the school holiday, if she wanted to stay in our house with her son, she was welcome to do so. Basically, many maids don't have space enough to house a child so when the children visit, so the maids live in for the duration.

Som was overjoyed and, we started to get a little concerned that perhaps another misunderstanding was on the way. Som's son is not at school and Tim started to worry that what he had said to Som might have been interpeted as "while your son is not at school (ie until such time as your son starts school)" you are welcome to stay here with him. We asked gentle probing questions but nothing seemed to clarify exactly what Som's understanding was and we certainly did not want to deny her the opportunity to see her son more if her understanding aligned closely with ours, but on the other hand we didn't think that we could really handle having a full-time live in maid along with a young child.

We asked Dave and Sarinya if they could discretely ask about the situation, if they got the chance, but the opportunity didn't really arise.

So, at the beginning of July, we went on holiday to Sweden and Som went down south to her home. When Tim came back two or so weeks later (sans family), he was wondering about what sort of domestic situation he would be walking into. He thought that he would be able to handle having Som and her son in the house for a month and during that time he could gently break the news (or confirm) that when the rest of the family returned from their extended stay in Sweden, we would like the house to ourselves.

Fortunately, although Som's understanding was not quite what we had, what she thought we meant works quite well anyway. Som took our meaning to be that there is no problem for her to bring her son to stay in the house while she works. It hasn't been a problem apart from occasional assistance provided while Tim is working on the computer. Ko, which is the name of Som's son (pronounced like "go"), comes and bangs on the keyboard regularly and nothing Tim says can make him go away. Still, if he shuts the door to the room first, his privacy is generally respected.

At first Ko was both shy and amazed by Tim. He had probably very rarely seen farang. When Tim spoke to him, Ko would run to Som but he would come back reasonably quickly and just stare. Now Ko is used to this strange, almost human-like, creature in the house and will run up to Tim and hug his leg when he gets home from work. Very cute!

As of the weekend prior to the return of Kajsa and the kids, it is not clear whether this arrangement will stay in place when the whole family is here. For Som's sake it would be nice if it did. But it should be realised that this is an attempt (however well-intentioned) to impose our Western values on the situation. It is common for grand-parents to be the primary care givers for children in Thailand, not just in poor families but also in quite well-off families as well. If this is accepted and people can expect to take care of their children's children at a time in their life when they have more time to do so, then there really is no loss of "family".

Still, Som was so over-the-moon about being able to go home for her son that we can be sure that this is something that she wants, rather than something that we have imposed on her. Her sister has started making comments about how she misses her child so it seems that she would like to establish a similar situation with her employer (which would be a little hard as that family has four kids).

Something that occured to Tim as he drove home from work one day about the safety standards of Thailand and the possibility of doing a bad thing when your intentions are admirable.

He was driving behind a motorcycle on the back of which was perched a little girl in school uniform, sitting behind a briefcase about half her size with her father (?) at the helm. The father had his helmet on as required by law, but the girl had no helmet and was not hanging on. Fortunately, unlike an adult female Thai, the girl was straddling the bike, rather than riding side saddle, which always looks so dangerous as the bikes weave in and out among the cars.

It made him feel a bit sad because with the huge numbers of families using motorcycles in this way, there has to be a fair number who come a cropper. What could be worse that losing your child off the back of a bike in heavy traffic? You'd have to blame yourself, at least to a certain extent.

Then he realised that in the circumstances that Som previously enjoyed vis a vis her son, there was no such danger. Her son lived with his grandparents and probably didn't travel at all. Now, at least twice a day he has a trip, albeit short, on a motorcycle when his mother goes to and from work. By generously offering to let him stay in our house while Som works, we have contributed to a daily decision which has resulted in a significant reduction of Ko's safety.

And it is not much of a decision. Som gets approximately twice the minimum wage for working for us, even so a taxi ride to and from her house would cost at least 20% of her daily income (compared to an Australian wage that would be about $20-$60 a day as a direct percentage), a huge chunk out of her pay. Even the motorbike ride (if she gets a bike service to carry her) will cost her close to 10%.

Our only consolation (minor though it is) is that, as soon as he goes to school, the risks he currently undertakes because of our input will be still taken but it will be purely due to economic realities rather than our intervention.

Rest assured that Som is likely to be mentioned in later chapters!