Meet our Ayi, Lauren. She started working for us a week or so after we arrived in Shanghai. In case you don't know, an Ayi is comeone in China who does all sorts of things...but generally works in domistic houses taking care of families. The girls also had ayi's in the school who cleaned up the classrooms.
Lauren was in the house everyday from 8:30 (after she dropped off her son) until 4:30. She took very good care of us. She did all of our laundry and cleaned and ironed, etc. She was also very important taking care of all of the maintenance things around our house...they were numerous! She also would make dinner for us sometimes. She made very good dumplings and mofu tofu. She also took care of the kids...and they really liked her.
Lauren is a migrant worker. She has been working in Shanhai for 10+ years since she was about 20 years old. She comes from a very poor village in central China. Her parents are rice farmers generally making everything they eat. She married a man that was also from a village very close to hers. He also lived in Shanghai. When they had their first child, she took her to live with her mother in law and then went back to Shanghai to work. She did the same when her second, a son was born. They are about 16 months apart. Because of the one child policy, when her second child was born, she had to pay a lot of money to the goverment. Fortunally, it is not as bad for her and her family as they are from a village and not from Shanghai. They tend to have less harsher fines since it is thought that a son is needed to run the farm. When they were ready to start school, she deceided to move the kids to Shanghai to live with her. She often told me that she really missed seeing her kids when they were Lindsay and Claire's age...she would only get to see them once a year (if she was lucky enough to go home for Chinese New Year).
This fall, Lauren and her husband were able to buy a house back in her home village. She was very excited about this. Her hope is to one day go back to her village and live once she has saved enough money working in Shanghai. I believe her children will have to return once they are ready to start high school. Currently, they go to special schools for children of migrant workers.
Lauren and her family got to go home to see her family this year for the first time in several years (first time for her kids since they moved to Shanghai). She told me she felt so lucky since she was able to get the last 4 (of 5) tickets on the train to her hometown. They would have to leave at 3:00 in the morning and it was aisle standing only. They would have to stand for 13 hours on the ride home. Still, she felt very lucky that she was able to get tickets as many cannot do to the limited number and the huge number of people that leave to go home during CNY.
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