What do you think about foreign workers? I mean like those from Indonesia, Vietnam,India, Nepal, Philippine, Bangladesh, Cambodia and some other developing countries. Normally, they will be taking those blue-collared jobs which the local citizens refuse to. In fact, they are categorized as the lowest class in the society. Day after day, they are judged and stereotyped and discriminated. I talked with my friends about this group of people before and the words like 'Dangerous', 'Dirty', 'Smelly','Slutty' were heavily used.
Well, I used to agree with them as some of the generalizations can be true. Some of them do contributed to the increasing crime rate in the country. However, one thing for sure- not ALL of them are like that. In fact, just refer to the common cases of maid-abuse and some other forms of exploitations by the agents and employers. Seriously, if they have better choice, no one would want to leave their homelands and work as cleaners, maids or even worse- prostituted themselves at 5 bucks at a land which is totally strange for them. In my opinion, I think that the pressure and judgement of the 'other higher classes' around forced them to stick together closely with one another. As such, they always appear in group or gang. It is an obvious sign of insecurity.
No, I am not joining the bandwagon to voice about the maid-abuse issue. Actually, it's my present encounter with them drives me to jot down something about this special group of people. Just like any other huge company, mine also hired a lot of foreigners to do the cleaning job. Since we all share the same pantry and working area, I always have chance to observe them closely when I have nothing better to do.
All of them are from different countries but they all share a few significant traits.
1. They walk across people fast with eyes staring on the floor. I am always amazed that they were able to avoid hitting the pillars, shelves and things around them.
2. If they accidentally having eye-contact with other employees who are not doing domestic work, some kind of uneasiness will rise from their eyes. Quickly, they will look away and continue staring down.
3. When they see others coming from the front, no matter how much stuff they were carrying, they would automatically moved to the side and allowed others to walk past first.
4. During lunch hour, they would avoid sharing the same table with the rest of the people. Normally, when they had no choice, they chose to sit at a corner and tried to hide their entire head into the lunch box while eating.
5. They always looked sorry and apologised first when they thought they were blocking others' way but in fact is the other way round.
6. They never greet anybody or make any noise when non-cleaners are around.
Their inferiority is apparent. I don't know why but it kills me in someways.
I really want to say 'Hi' to them sometimes but I am not sure how would they feel and react about it. I feel sad seeing them swallowing the food from their lunch box, which is normally some curry soup over the plain rice. A lot of questions played in my mind--"Do they miss a home-cooked meals from home?"; "How often they call home?"; "When could they go home?"; "What do they feel about working here?"; "How do they think about the themselves and the other members in the society?"
Some people might think that I care too much about some unnecessary stuff. Maybe I am, though trust me, I can understand how it feels like in someway. I worked ALL kinds of job before. I worked as babysitter, maid, cashier, waitress, went selling books door-to-door and even cleaned some bathroom and toilets before for living. Life is hard and sometimes you just have to do everything to survive.
My grandparents used to have one disturbed Indonesian maid who mixed her urine into the drinking water jar and also some others who stole. Meanwhile, I had relatives who slapped and insulted her domestic helper besides pouring boiling water on her after she found out that her husband had been sleeping with the younger maid.
I guess, in general, nobody would like to be belittled or live right next to prejudice. But, we stay in a cold world, ruthless persecutions and generalizations are everywhere. Like what my Long Island host mom used to say, "Then toooOOooo bad, life is never fair.." Somehow, I think that everybody has their own destiny. Who knows, maybe after years of working, their families will be able to lead a better life.
Believe it or not, most of the time, the reason for us to be strong and fearless is our 'family'. It is the strongest support you could ever gain from this planet.
So, love yourself and love everybody. It's ok to be treated mean but never be mean to anybody. Treat others the way you want to be treated. I believe in 'karma'. Life is definitely going to take you to a place where you belong.
