Ayi Shortage

     Recently I discovered that the school library gets a local English language newspaper, the Shenzhen Daily.  I've been stopping in regularly during my lunch break to see what the Daily can tell me about this place where we live.  Among other things, Friday's edition reported on testing for heavy metals in locally-sold Chinese rice and a crackdown on another illegal milk additive to boost the protein content, not melamine this time but a toxic by-product from leather processing.  I read that Shenzhen's 5-year recycling plan calls for the upscale hotels to stop providing disposable bottles of toiletries after 2015.  And I read that there's a shortage of an estimated 150,000 ayis in the city!

     An ayi (pronounced "eye-ee") is a housekeeper, who can also be a child minder.  Many, if not most, expat households have an ayi.  I have friends here from India and Pakistan who are used to having domestic help, so it's only natural that they'd engage help similarly here.  Westerners who probably wouldn't have household help at home are delighted to find that it's very affordable here.   Leah's friends' families all have ayis.  A teacher who has a toddler told me that one of the reasons she and her husband like working here is that they'd never be able to afford their lifestyle if they lived and worked as a teacher couple in the U.S.  By "lifestyle" I think she mostly was referring to having an ayi to nanny their child and to also clean their apartment, do some cooking, take care of the laundry and run errands.  Another factor in hiring an ayi is that there's a little more of certain kinds of tedious work to maintaining a household here.  For one thing, there are a lot more particulates in the air and surfaces get dirty much faster than at home.  Floors, tables and chairs, the balconies, everything seems to collect a fine coat of dust, sometimes in a single afternoon.  So some extra time is needed just to keep ahead of the dust.

     The newspaper article reported that the average starting salary for full-time ayis is now up to 2000 yuan/month, which is about $300, and experienced ayis' average pay is 2300-2500/month.  Ayis who speak English and who have more demanding duties can earn up to 4500/month (close to $700).  Ayis usually work 10-hour days, Monday through Friday, though this can vary.

     Many ayis went home for Chinese New Year.  A number of those who went home chose not to return to Shenzhen after the holiday, which explains a good part of the shortage. These women have been able to find work in their home cities that pays nearly as well, and now they can be with their children.  When young parents migrate to cities like Shenzhen to find work, they usually leave behind their children to be cared for by grandparents or other relatives in their home city.

     A couple weeks ago I had afternoon tea with my Indian and Pakistani friends.  One of the topics of conversation was how stressed they felt having their ayis gone for a week or two over Chinese New Year and how eager they were for their ayis to return to work.  One of them said that since her family was gone to New Zealand for a couple weeks over the Christmas break and her ayi had most of that time off, she felt it was excessive for the ayi to take off another chunk of time.  But she didn't dare tell her ayi that she couldn't take 2 weeks off for Chinese New Year, because my friend knew that the ayi's husband would still insist on going home for the whole 15 days of the new year celebration.  He'd just tell his wife to quit her job and then find a new job after the holiday.
     After hearing these women talk about how inconvenienced they were without their ayis,  I confess to having felt a little smug about not having to deal with that dependence.  For a variety of reasons, Terry and I do not have an ayi.