GABRIELLE CHENG PORTFOLIO
Remediating One Roof Two Voices
Human Rights of Foreign Domestic Workers in Hong Kong
About These Poems
Foreign domestic helpers make up 3% of the Hong Kong population and represent around 8% of the workforce today in the city (South China Morning Post, 2015; The Economist, 2014). Yet, many of these workers are facing modern social oppression, ranging from verbal abuses to sexual abuses. In One Roof Two Voices, I have touched on the macroscopic legal, economic, and psychological perspectives faced by foreign domestic helpers, acknowledging the imbalanced power dynamic within the households. Here, borrowing the content from One Roof Two Voices, I have created five poems that are recorded as journal entries of a foreign domestic worker. In chronological order, they describe the emotional journey of the
1) nervous anticipation of leaving one’s hometown
2) the excitement of being an expat in Hong Kong
3) the sense of home away from home in Hong Kong
4) the unheard fear involved in the foreign domestic helper community
5) the bittersweet moment of returning to one’s hometown
Through them, I hope to showcase both the positive, neutral, and negative experiences shared by many foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong.
A sleepless night
So here I write
To ease my racing mind
For tomorrow a contract bind
The city called Hong Kong
Where they say stores don’t close dusk or dawn
There are buildings called high rise stood like giants
But how do they fit on a tiny island?
Oh, how I will miss my elderly mother
And my spoiled younger brother
Twenty five, twenty eight, thirty
Dedicated years opposite to carefree
This fight against poverty requires a flight
For a future they promise bright
Yet, under the moonlight tonight
I hope a decision made right
So here I go
Tomorrow this time
Across the ocean
Across the sky
My shaking feet
Set on a new land
- January 8, 2010
Taller and taller
the high rise buildings
Surely a feeling of thrilling!
Bigger and bigger
The mom and pop stores here
Big enough to be a billionaire!
Faster and faster
Cars called taxi, vans, bus, trams
Replaced the scene of cows and lambs!
More and more
People from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and familiar Indonesia
Next outing with Wani, Ayu, Dita, Nadya!
With a family of four I stay
In an apartment so lack in space
Cantonese they speak
A language like hide and seek
Oh, what will I discover tomorrow?
- January 30, 2010
Slowly…slowly I find my words
Explain my ideas without a blur
Two months in
Finally a feeling not begin
Slowly…slowly I have my friends
Outings we go together during weekends
A piece of home
Away from home
Slowly…slowly I have my bearings
Indonesian shops without much searching
Oh, darling, isn’t it exciting?
To feel belonged, to feel restoring
Slowly…slowly I find time to read
The philosophical, the fictional deeds
Not just a cook, a children caretaker
But a reader, a word maker
- March 29, 2010
Mr. and Mrs. treated me well
But I hear stories of others that made my stomach swirled
A Mr. and a Mrs. only with she stayed
Many rules at home they applied
For fear that she was not “concentrated” at her work
Phone took away during the day
Her “room” that composed of a single bed
inside the kitchen where when she had a stool she sat
working nine in the morning to nine at night
One night Mr. crept next to her bed
She felt a hand caressed her body
Quickly she woke and curled
Only saw Mr.’s back at the door
A dream and a misunderstanding she thought
But alone time she feared with Mr.
One day inevitably Mrs. went to work
Preparing food as usual at the kitchen
Mr. stormed in and dropped his pants
Forcing her to touch and caress him
Horror! Horror!
Following weeks more abuses
Her agent she sought for help
Required proof they said to call police
Her job suspended for a year
Waiting for the court made its verdict
Lived in a shelter, banned from going back home
Without financial streams
To pay her debt for the flight to Hong Kong
To pay her family of four at home
To pay for her daily living
A year of desperation
Oh, justice…may there be justice
- April 27, 2010
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Tomorrow marked my two years at this city
Oh, what a ride in these two years
In two weeks I’m going back home
For a mandatory two week vacations by law
I’m going to see my mommy and daddy
Drop two weeks of fear and embrace family cheer
Make Bakso, Jagung Bakar, Martabak, and Gorengan
Oh, the cows, the lambs, the chicken, and all!
I could hardly keep my words stable and clear
Or write legibly, scribbling all across
Hong Kong treated well
But no where better than home when abroad
Little Mike and Sarah made me a bracelet, sincere
Said they will miss me like they miss tomato sauce
Meanwhile I will miss their baby smell
And everyday from 4pm to 6pm to the park as a squad
But here I go
Two weeks of home
Two weeks of my mother tongue
Two weeks of being a majority
Earned by two years of sweat abroad
- November 10, 2010
