whoa ... one professor already wrote back ... the british guy from yale ... he was very nice and redirected me to another professor. good man.

some thoughts on the singapore wet market:

1. one great thing about it is how people specialize in one thing and one thing only. you have to go to the pork man, or the chicken man, or the beef man. you have to go to a fruits stand, or a veggies stand, or the eggs man (who incidentally has only one arm.) i think it's very smart to know your craft and know it well, no matter what your craft is.

2. i was amazed at how knowledgeable people are at their trade. the chicken guy ... in like 10 whacks, had the whole chicken cut up and unskinned. very precise movements with a wicked big knife. and the veggie guy was very generous about sharing his knowledge of his produce. where it comes from, how's it grown, which one is good for which kinds of meal. and when he was calculating my mom's stuff (and it was a lot of stuff) he was just doing it in his head as he weighed it. no calculators for him!

3. everyone has their favorite pork guy, even though the three guys are brothers. the youngest is everyone's favorite ... he's real nice, tells you about the cut and trims off all the fat. he gets the longest queue, and his oldest brother gets all the old ladies. hee hee.

3b. in america, there are jobs that are considered sucky. those are the blue collar jobs that need to be done. i don't think the meat guy at costco gets nearly as much credit as he deserves. but here in singapore, it doesn't matter what you do. the pork brothers, for examples. they love what they do. they're good at what they do. they don't see it as demeaning to be sitting knee high in pork parts with that nasty meat smell. and i think that is awesome ... i get all persnickety having to walk through the isles. all i can think about is germs.

4. one of the things i dislike most about asian culture (and here i get on my soapbox and do a little social commentary) is the whole live-in maid business. everyone's got one, a young girl/woman from the philippines that has no way of making a living in her home country except to live in servitude in someone else's home. in hong kong, we had a filipina maid. her name was beatrice, and she practically raised alex. she was a nurse in her home country, and she would often tell us about the daughters she had left behind. she was real handy, fixed everything and did some really great cooking. she was always friendly and pleasant and sang a lot, and we loved her. treated her like one of the family. after we moved back to the states, she used to write us christmas cards and stuff. i didn't realize it at the time, but i think beatrice's case was an exception. she was treated reasonably well in comparison to other maids in other families, and we all got along.

the maids i see here are big time misery. just this morning, at the wetmarket ... i saw a lot of them, head down, unsmiling, trailing their rich-wife employers around the market, carrying tens of pounds of food. or carrying the rich-wife's babies around, trying to amuse them AND carry the family's groceries. the wives never make eye contact, and kind of talk through them and talk at them. all i hear the maids saying is "yes ma'am" a lot. they just look so sad.

in hong kong, every maid got sunday off. beatrice used to go off with her friends, and on sundays, you'd see the maids in droves, hanging out on the streets, eating ice cream with their friends ... here in singapore ... few maids get the day off. they work seven days a week, 24 hours a day, for maybe S$300 a month. that's about $180 US dollars. A MONTH. that seems so so so wrong to me. they're never allowed contact with other people, b/c if they meet a guy, and get pregnant, the gov't fines the hell out of the family employer. so in order to avoid trouble, the maids never get to go anywhere, unless it's with the family.

i remember when beatrice lived with us, she never ate with us. i never thought about it at the time, but what does that say about the society we live in? and i can say, at least my mom would let her get her food from the table before we started eating. in other families i know that maids get to eat the leftovers the family leaves ... if there are any. they are on call 24-7 and have precious little to call their own.

the sad part is ... the life they lead here in singapore still earns them more money that they would in their own country. a lot of suffering is done in silence, if for no other reason that because they have no choice. their families are depending on the income. but i see them, and my heart aches for them. the filipino people, from what little i've seen, are generous and warm-hearted, given to laughter and singing. but here in singapore, i've seen none of that. those who have been broken in spirit are submissive and seldom speak. then there are the silently defiant. my mom's friend has such a maid. with beatrice, we'd say thank you, and she's smile and say you're welcome. jennylynn never says anything. you say thanks, and she just looks at you and stalks off. not that i can blame her.

servitude is a strange thing. while it cannot be classified as slavery any more, because they are earning wages, having a maid here is nevertheless, a slavery of sorts. when people are treated as "less than" because of their race/skin color/profession, that's wrong. i see these pompous, louis vuitton's murikami bag-carrying rich chinese wives, and i want to beat the hell out of them. the condescension that these maids face is palpable and i feel it, even though it's not directed at me. i've often been mistaken for being filipina because i'm pretty dark for being chinese ... and just this morning, i saw a maid looking at me, and the way i dress, which showed that i wasn't a maid. and i thought how easily our roles might be reversed. and i'm grieved.

the worst part is knowing that it's probably not going to chance. this ingrained attitude of greater or lesser in asian culture runs very deep. north of the equator = more. south of the equator = less. chinese families can't live without a maid and filipina women can't live without the jobs. there are so many inherent social inequities that there is no easy way to start breaking down the barriers. what can i do? yell at the chinese women for being haters? fix the filipino gov't/economy so they people can stay at home with their families?

we loved beatrice growing up. if i had been aware of the inequalities that were shown to her, i'd have loved her more. invited her to eat with us. it's a small thing, but it's something.