Outsourcing our lives and creating emptiness
- By Zhao Hui
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E-mail China.org.cn, October 17, 2012
Every aspect of our modern lives can be designed and tailored by specialists, whether it concerns life-altering events such as delivering a baby and marriage, or naming a child, birthday parties, courtship, old-age care and even funeral. Yet the more services we enjoy, the more dependence we actually place on them.
Fortunately, the situation is not yet spinning out of control, but we do need to realize the direction we're headed in before it's too late.
Housework handled by strangers
Ye Qing, a professor at the Central Academy of Drama as well as a host on Beijing TV, is fully occupied by her work. Strong-minded and competent as she is, no baby sitter was ever hired until the birth of her second child in 2010. Ye found herself being disturbed by her elder son who was too young to be sent off to kindergarten, and failed to depend on her husband who worked abroad all year round. Therefore, she had no choice but to ask her friend to introduce to her a reliable housekeeper.
At a monthly salary of 3,000 yuan and including free meals and accommodation, Xiao Qiang, a typical fifty-something villager from Shanxi Province, both plain and diligent in character, was hired as the house maid. Her main job was to take care of the baby, sleeping alongside it and checking if the quilt was fully tucked in. Xiao Qiang's life was completely planned according to the baby's physiological needs such as breast-feeding and diaper- changing. She even learned to speak Mandarin for the sake of the child's linguistic acquisition.
In the past two years, Xiao Qiang has witnessed every move the baby made and a deep relationship was established between family and babysitter. "Her cooking is terrible," said Ye with a laugh," but we are truly fond, and in need, of her."
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