The Confinement Nannies

"Who wants to take care of a monster like MEEEEE?"

“Yeah, you’re pregnant. You need to tell the nurse what hospital room you want, shared or single, so we can do the booking.” That was my first Gynea checkup, 2 weeks after the test showed positive (so, the nurse explained, they could actually see something on the ultra-scan.)

I balk. They just told me I have an egg in the right place and already I have to decide what room at the hospital I want to stay at when I lay it?

2 weeks later when they do confirm a heartbeat, “You have to book now, you’re already late.”

(In case you thought that was for private hospitals, a friend at Queen Mary’s bemoans the same. Potential parents from the Mainland do like to come over to have the baby for the Hk passport.) Gingerly I pick a room, recalling last I heard that my Gynea’s c-section fee was up at least 50% from Rockstar days. 

After the blood test at the 12-week mark to check for chromosomal abnormalities, I’m told to bring my HKID and pay a deposit at the hospital to secure the room.

So Kings decides to look up our old confinement nannies early – we alternated a Hung Jie and a Ling Jie because, not realizing the craziness in “auspicious child-bearing years” here, we started looking around too late and had to make do with whenever they could make it between jobs. The standard nanny fee is about HKD 20,000 a month, and this time round we are told (by 3rd parties) it can go up to HKD 40,000. A quick call around recommended nannies in HK today will yield you almost no vacancy for the next 6 months – so much so if you get one easily you’d also be wondering if there’s anything wrong with her 😛

(In case you are wondering why we did not try the cheaper, “easier” option of getting a nanny from Malaysia last time – the verdict is, never again. The Malaysian-Chinese friend of a friend of a friend from KL came very highly recommended. She was worse than useless. She did not even boil water. I boiled water for her. When JD got sick in the apartment, the dog knew how to avoid stepping on it. “Highly recommended nanny” did not. She spread the filth throughout the kitchen and living room, not even thinking to remove her slippers to wash them. When we asked her if she knew she’d stepped on the stuff, she said “Yes, I dare not to look.”

We cleaned it up, because we did not trust her to know to do it properly. When it became clear she was grossly incompetent and we wanted to check the credentials she and friends of friends of friends claimed she possessed, she then claimed because we lived on the 37th floor and she had never been up so high – the air must be “different” and therefore she couldn’t think and felt “dizzy” all the time. This was accompanied by a whole bunch of theatrics (which never materialized before we asked for her credentials).

She finally admitted she had blatantly faked her “qualifications and experience” to get to come see HK. It bothered me very much that someone from the capital of my once-home country could think they could get away with such blatant lying of their abilities. Comparing like and like, she would’ve been skewered in Hk. It is not a question of simple lying – what made me livid was the irresponsibility of it – what happens if something happened to my baby from her lying about her competence for a “free trip”? And the fact it apparently was not a problem for her to lie to people who knew her about the credentials – especially when they all found out. She just wanted the free trip and got it.)

Hung Jie used to work in a local Hk orphanage. She was our favorite, a wizened old lady who said she quit the orphanage and began moonlighting because it had got too depressing. I didn’t pay that much attention to that til a girlfriend successfully adopted a perfect little baby girl just 1 or 2 months after the paperwork was done. Hung Jie’s level of surprise was well, surprising. “There’s really nothing wrong with the child and she got a match that fast? And it’s a baby in Hk, not China?” (The girl’s birth parents were both 12 at the time, and had no idea what they were doing – the mother had not known she was pregnant til she was 5 months along.)

Rockstar’s then-nanny went on to explain that “truly healthy” children in Hk were rarely given up for adoption, because children are well, very highly valued. People pull out a lot of stops for their kids, there’s a lot of planning that goes on, local couples fairly often do bloodtests to check for congenital defects/ risks, and so on, before trying for a child. So then I ask about her charges in the local orphanages.

“Too often they’re the product either of men who have taken advantage of mentally disabled women, or of very young Chinese women who marry very old Hk men and after they get their passports they run off leaving the child behind. These Hk men are usually too old to care for them so they end up (in the orphanages). You think the babies are healthy, but actually they aren’t very. It’s very sad, it’s why I left…”

When we first got here, we discovered a “sitting out area” of benches, concrete and a few sorry trees where I could at least throw a stick for JD off-leash because the development we lived in back then was annoyingly anal about muzzles. Old folk in particular used to sit there, and a (then) 1.5 yr old border collie jumping up and down doing tricks did not particularly impress anyone – til one day, a girl who looked to be in her late teens came up to play with her. The girl was at least mildly mentally disabled, that I could tell from her speech (and well also a little from her appearance), but other than that she looked physically healthy and strong, quite big-sized.

The girl was soon joined by a wizened old man, probably in his 50s or 60s, and they went to sit on one of the benches nearby – the area was apparently a rendezvous point for them. The old man proceeded to paw at her with a greedy, lecherous look on his face and she would occasionally half-heartedly try to stop him.

It was disturbing, but I had just arrived from Singapore to find Hong Kong, with its lack of English (and my lack of Cantonese), difficult to get around alone in – I’d been getting slapped around by apartment attendants who said things like, “Are you even 30, to get to live in an apartment like this?” I didn’t know what to say about the girl and the old man. I called Kings, who travelled 3-quarters of the year back then, and asked if there was something I could possibly say/do. He didn’t think so.

I subsequently only saw the girl and the old man once after, and he was much more careful (guess I didn’t hide my discomfort). But the image of him pawing at her with that look on his face came to mind from Hung Jie’s account of some of the children in the orphanages…

Ling Jie was a shark. That was how she managed clients and sold her abilities and services. Incredibly political, had she been formally educated, she would probably be one of the most cut throat i-banker sales people around. Instead, with little formal education, she’d divorced her husband and would incredulously say things to me like, “So what, you told your ex to learn from your failed relationship and treat the next girl better?! That just benefits the other girl, why do that?” While on jobs, Ling Jie would take breaks (politely) to have dinner with one of her children if they were working/ living nearby where she was currently working. She’s a helluva a career woman. Worlds apart from the “expert” we were recommended from KL (who btw, was literate in English and possibly also chinese, unlike Ling Jie.)

Naturally we were quoted HKD 30,000 a month, 50% higher than previously, for any length of time. It’s a nanny’s market, what with next year’s the dragon year. Though I do wonder if it’s partly because they remember baby Rockstar (who was such a holy terror) 😀

Cute lah I suppose, but quite a monster you know? <scary music>

Ps: In case you’re wondering why we’re looking at nannies, our current helper has no experience with babies or young children and aside from a half hour picking Rockstar up on school days, has virtually zero contact with him. If all goes well, the baby would be due a few months before I think Rockstar will start Primary school – new friends, new school, and Rockstar is not an easygoing child, he either performs very well or shuts down. I wanted to make sure I had my hands free enough to spend time getting Rockstar ready to adjust to a new school environment.

Also, I should probably mention that my Gynea really discourages the use of confinement nannies. She’s Canadian, educated at McGill (among others), and has made HK her home. Her concern with the very traditional confinement nannies is one of hygiene and the use of certain Chinese herbs. I don’t take Chinese herbs anyway (though some of my friends do), just a bad experience long ago where I’m almost sure the herb made me a lot sicker than the tummy bug. I do have some arthritis though – so I do follow the no-touching-of-cold/unboiled-water thing, the nannies boil water with ginger for baths. It smells like one of the baths in a spa. 

I have no idea what confinement food entails, I eat what they cook – it’s yummy and not very different from what I usually eat anyways. But strictly no herbs. The nannies sometimes feel it cramps their style and get a little huffy, but comply.