The Amah Problem
NANCY PENCE BRITTON was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and is a graduate of Northwestern University. She is the wife of an RAF officer,who has been stationed for the past year in Singapore.
by NANCY PENCE BRITTON
THE only uniformity about all the amahs we have had is that they have been uniformly terrible. The first gave notice once too often (the fourth time, it was) and we got her out of the house two days later. Then for a week we had Ah Tai, who was almost exactly like Bea Lillie pretending to be a ghastly maid, except that she wasn’t as good-looking.
She was a Cantonese who spoke English (if you could call it that) with a faint Swedish accent. Because she kept the electric cooker going all day long brewing putrid stews for her own meals, she had hardly any time left for us. When I protested strongly about what the bills would be, she said proudly that her previous mem had paid $300 a month for electricity. I could well believe it.
Finally, one evening in the middle of dinner she announced suddenly, as she was clearing the table, that she was leaving the next afternoon. I said, “No, you’re not. You’re leaving tomorrow morning.” Next morning she said she didn’t want to go because it was raining, and would be willing to stay on for a day or two. I told her it might rain fora week, for all I knew, and I couldn’t risk it. I got her out by sheer will power, and half an hour later the sun was shining brilliantly.
Then we had one Ah Kam for just under twenty-four hours. Both she and Ah Tai had wonderful references. Ah Kam was chiefly memorable because, when we asked her for whom she had worked before, she said, “Kim Soon.” We naturally assumed this was some Chinese gentleman, but it was Lady Gimson, wife of the Governor of Singapore.
Government House is a big place, but I should hardly have thought it was big enough to hold Lady Gimson and Ah Kam. Our house is slightly smaller. Ah Kam and I locked horns within the first few hours. We had a battle of will powers before breakfast the following morning and she fortunately gave me notice, so we saved paying her bus fare back to Singapore.
At that point we decided we were bored with Chinese amahs, and I was only too delighted to do the housework myself. However, a couple of evenings later our Malay gardener brought along a fourteen-year-old Javanese girl for us to try. They certainly mature rapidly in the tropics. Her name was Mina and she made Dorothy Lamour look humdrum. It was with real regret that we threw her out after tea the next afternoon. She was utterly useless, but she would have added such tone to our parties.
She appeared at 7 A.M. in an anklelength green satin sarong and a lot of gold bracelets and earrings and shoulder-length black curls and a fair amount of mascara. She didn’t work hard enough to soil this get-up, but at lunchtime she went home and changed into an even dressier pink satin sarong and jade jewelry. The deciding factor in booting her out was not so much that she went about her work chewing on a whole loaf of bread and occasionally leaving it absentmindedly on our desk or dressing table, as that she was such a deeply religious type that she not only would not cook ham, bacon, or pork, or anything cooked in bacon fat, but even refused to wash any dishes or forks or pans that pork products had touched. However, I wouldn’t have missed that twenty-four hours for anything.
Up to this point we had been getting our Chinese amahs from the tony agency in Singapore where you pay $5 and their taxi fare. On a whim I barged along one morning to the government labor exchange south of the river in a pretty unsalubrious district. There was a row of about fifteen amahs sitting on a bench, most of them terrible. I was the only employer so early in the morning.
In that chamber of horrors, little Ah Khee was like a peony, with her nice pink cheeks and dewy look. She has a long black braid that hangs to her waist in back and a very demure smile. I dragged my husband there after lunch to have a look at her. He was taken with her too, and she liked us.
Two large relatives were upset at her taking a job on her own (they’d been a team of three before) but Ah Khee was firm with them. They and other relatives swarmed out to our home to took the place over, and more came the next day. I could hear them opening the refrigerator and peering inside, and one of them looked behind the bathtub! I was wondering if I’d be able to stand it, but they haven’t been near the place for some time now (knock on wood), and Ah Khee is still with us.