Word: amah
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...couple of past Sundays, however, the amahs have also marched. They're protesting new legislation in the Philippines that requires maids who work overseas to undergo two weeks of official training and tests. The $300 associated cost comes out of the amah's pocket, which is what has Hong Kong's Filipinas up in arms. They're quick to note that they already pay the government placement fees while, at the same time, Hong Kong officials cut their minimum wage by $50 a month two years ago. "How will we afford this on our small salaries?" asks Dolores Balladares...
...Back in Hong Kong, the amahs are known by the Tagalog nickname bayani. As we walked toward the Philippines consulate, they explained to me that it translates as heroine, which is what most of these women are to the family and friends they've left behind. Plagued by poverty and unemployment, the Philippines has exported about 8 million workers, the vast majority of whom are women. In the first half of last year, these mothers, sisters and daughters sent home more than $8 billion in remittances, roughly 10% of the country's GDP. That dollar figure is expected to double...
...photographer at TIME magazine assigned to cover the Vietnam War, has moved to Hong Kong from New York with the idea that, "Hong Kong would be safer than Saigon; an old-fashioned British enclave." He and his family soon find that nowhere is safe. The girls hear from their amah about the turmoil in their looming neighbor to the north: news of Chinese communists closing down schools and destroying homes during the Cultural Revolution. Their mother tries to escape the tension by surrounding herself with "the charm and comforts of the colonial era," taking lunches on the Peak, and attending...
...life in Hong Kong, they are still kept at a distance and referred to as "gwaimui, white ghost girl." Greenway, herself an American who spent parts of her childhood in Hong Kong, deftly captures this dynamic, as the girls gain access to aspects of local culture, often through their amah, that those in their parents' generation would be unable to enter...
HALLMARK HALL OF FAME (NBC, 6:30-7:30 p.m. nationwide; WNBC-TV in New York, 3:30-4:30 p.m.). Burr Tilstrom and his Kuklapolitans host Gian Carlo Menotti's Christmas opera, Amah] and the Night Visitors...