Servant Stories

In a traditional southern female shirt, a country girl with a pony tail dropped by a noodle shop. She asked the lady owner, “Do you need somebody to wash dishes?” The lady answered, “Yes. I’ll pay you 30,000 dong a day. You’ll pay for your own meals.”

After a few days, she wearily said, “I want to quit.” “Ok, you deserve your pay,” answered the owner. The two thus parted, easily and without regret.

Seen from the outside, servant services are simple jobs. But the Vietnamese often say, “Only when lying under the blanket, one knows the blanket is full of lice.” This proverb well expresses servant services.

Fear of a “coup d’etat”

Waiting for jobs

According to Mrs. Lưu Thị Yến from Liêm Trực Hamlet, Tân An Village, An Nhơn Town, Bình Định Province, because her children are small, and she is very busy at work, she often hires servants to do housework. In her opinion, finding a reliable servant who can stay for a long time is extremely difficult. She has to find people from the same countryside as hers through recommendations of friends and relatives. Otherwise, she could not be sure that her servant is trustworthy or not. Trustworthiness is the most important characteristic in servants, because servants live in the houses.

Mrs. Yen has had many bad experiences with servants. That’s why she is always cautious in case she “cherishes a snake in her own bosoms.” When servants come fresh from the countryside, she has to instruct them in many things like how to turn on the washing machine or the gas cooking-stove. Sometimes, they carelessly damage household equipment. Yet, they learn fast, and as soon as somebody else offers them higher pay, they leave.

Many mistresses refuse to hire young, beautiful girls at the first sight, even without bothering to test their ability or to talk to them. They only hire women over 40 or girls under 16. They have a justified fear. The soap opera in which a master of the house has an affair with a maid is quite common. Young countryside girls are often dazzled by city attractions, including masters with lots of money as well as experience. Mistresses may fear such dreadful coups d’etats.

In Le Loi Ward, Quy Nhon City, there was a girl named H. whose home was way over in the Western region. While wandering her life away in shady cafes in the central region, she tumbled upon the owner of a rich construction company. She asked to be his housemaid. And within only 6 months, from the one who stood over the national washing machine, she changed into the one who lay under her master in a made-in-Hong Kong bed. The secret was revealed. And it was the middle-aged mistress with pepper-and-sand hair that was expelled from the house.

In HCM City, the most disturbing thing is that whores often disguise themselves as housemaids. Whorehouses’ owners and pimps make the best of this opportunity. Another purpose of servant services may be to spy for professional thieves who want to know important places inside the houses, from the bedrooms and staircases to the money safes. Thus, servant employers should have as much information as possible about prospective servants’ backgrounds, hometowns, and previous employments. They should also request servants to register for temporary residence/absence with local authorities.

Toiling away as hospital servants

Mr. M. from Phuoc Son Village, Tuy Phuoc Town, starts her day at Binh Dinh Province General Hospital by cleaning patient’s bodies. From then until the end of her work day, Ms. Hoa employs her time in doing everything necessary to provide patients with the best conditions possible for a quick recovery. She has little time to take a nap at noon. For three years, her place is at patients’ beds, from one room to another. She said that she accidentally became a hospital maid. In her hamlet, there was an 80-year-old woman who had been sick for long time. Her children lived too faraway to take care of her. They hired her for that task until the old woman’s death. From then on, her reputation as an excellent patient’s maid spread far and wide. Many households throughout the province came to her when people in the families fell sick.

The work of hospital servants is very demanding. Many experienced house servants who try their hands in hospitals have to give up. The task of cleaning patients is strenuous. Yet, the meager pay of 50,000 dong/day is satisfactory to many because hospital work is lighter than field work.

Ms. Nha from Song Cau Town, Phu Yen Province has a 2-year experience serving tens of patients. Perhaps only hospital servants themselves understand the hardships they have to go through. Seriously ill patients are often tortured by pain, so hospital maids can’t sleep at night. And whenever a patient wakes up in the middle of the night to go to the restroom, the maid must be nearby.

Ms. Nha said that hospital servants must work with a caring heart. Without it, they won’t stay in the profession for long. “We often tell ourselves to serve patients, both male and female, to the utmost of our ability so that people will remember and trust us and hire us again, “said she.

When Ms. Nha first told her family about the nature of her job, her husband and children insisted on her not going to Quy Nhon any more. However, the family finally yielded to her determination.

She also said she had recommended a friend to work as a hospital servant in Quy Nhon. After working for only 1 month, her friend was snatched back to her hometown by the husband. At home, he had heard from a neighbor that his wife was taking care of a widower day after day. This gossip story almost brought a storm into the family.

11am is visiting hour at hospitals. Hospital servants take advantage of their short break to eat lunch. They then try to take a nap on those cold marble seats on the hospital yards, so that they will be ready to watch patients through the night. Their work, which brings peace of mind to many families, thus quietly continues day by day.

(Source: Tien Phong) 

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