Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Spic and Span
Last night I finally got around to hiring a cleaning lady, or as they are known in Chinese, an ayi, pronounced “eye-ee,” and meaning “auntie.” She came recommended by my friend Richard, who has been using her for over two years and said she’s trustworthy and won’t steal my shit.
Last night Richard, his Chinese girlfriend, her brother, and the ayi came over. I showed her around the place, and told her what I wanted done. Basically she’ll clean the entire house twice a week, wash my clothes, do all the dishes, buy my groceries, and even cook for me. And let me tell you, she was horrified by the state of my apartment. Beijing is a very dry city, known for its summer dust storms, which I am so looking forward to. When you combine that with the amount of pollution and general filth that there is in the air, things tend to get very dusty very quickly.
In America we have dust bunnies. In China we have dust wolverines. My apartment is full of the latter.
She’ll come Mondays and Thursdays, and we figure it’ll take her two or three hours a day to get done everything she needs to do. The price? ¥20 an hour, which is $2.70. And that’s a good price for her, too, she was quite pleased that I agreed to it. Initially she asked for a flat rate of ¥800 a month. Richard and I did some quick math. ¥800 is just over $100. If she comes twice a week that’s eight times a month. $100 divided by 8 is $12.50 a day. That’s not an unfair wage for a top-to-bottom house cleaning, washing, and shopping. We worked out a deal that for the first month I would pay her hourly plus her expenses (taxi to and from the store, etc.), and that if everything was satisfactory, after the first month we could come to an arrangement on a flat rate. Considering that a decent maid in LA, who works for a bonded and insured company, will run you $60 an hour, $100 a month isn’t a bad deal.
She asked where my cleaning supplies were and I said that I really didn’t have any, so I gave her ¥500 and told her to go to Carrefours and buy anything she needed. She’ll just leave me a list of her expenses, with receipts, and we’ll go from there.
The great thing is that I’ll never see her. I told her not to come before 10:00 am, by which time I’ll be long gone for work. She’ll have her own key, can just let herself in, and when I get home at night it’s like the cleaning fairies have visited.
Ah, no more dishwashing. Seriously, if there’s one thing I hate more than anything it’s doing the dishes, and if there’s one thing I hate more than that it’s doing the dishes by hand.