A Yellow House

by Karien van Ditzhuijzen

  Mama read some more passages of the paper for herself. ‘After the Great Depression, since there were no jobs in China, these women came to Singapore to work. They also called them Samsui women. Some worked in construction, factories, or other jobs usually done by men. But Ah Feng arrived later and ended up doing domestic work. Interestingly, around that time, the British colonisers had banned new Chinese men from coming into Singapore. They felt there were too many Chinese men and not enough jobs. But they forgot to take the women seriously. It must have been men that made that rule!’

  We laughed together. I wondered whether that made me a feminist? If it could make Mama laugh with me, maybe I needed to embrace feminism. I liked the idea of being free, of not having to answer to anybody. But I hated feminism if that too was all about money.

  ‘Ah Feng stayed in another sister house here. Until she found her first job, as a live-in amah. Do you want to know what her first salary was?’ Mama flipped through the document frantically. ‘Here. Five dollars a week.’

  ‘That’s nothing!’

  ‘It was a lot more in the nineteen thirties. And she was live-in, so she had no other costs. And no family to support.’

  No remittances, I thought. No daughter to build a yellow house for. She could spend all her five dollars on herself.

  ‘I wonder what she spent it on?’

  ‘That’s a good question,’ Mama said. ‘I never thought to ask that.’

  ‘The interesting thing is that when I wrote this, in the nineties, people felt very strongly about these Chinese amahs. I interviewed some old employers too – they all raved about them. They were so loyal and devoted. They called these amahs ‘superior servants’, as if they were better than the Filipina and Indonesians that came later.

  ‘But Ah Feng was not so bothered by loyalty. She worked hard and picked the employers that suited her. She preferred to work as an amah, which meant she had to do everything, from cooking to cleaning and laundry, to child-minding. She said that if she was in a bigger household with more servants, she’d have to listen to others instead of being in charge herself. She felt no one could do it better than she could. She took a lot of pride in her work. Did you know she worked for PoPo’s family for twenty-five years?

  ‘Ah Feng insisted she didn’t owe anyone anything in her life. That was what she was proud of. Her independence was the most important thing.’

  Mama let the pages slip through her fingers. ‘I was used to getting all my information from a book. PoPo insisted I did some fieldwork and speak to Ah Feng. She was right.’

  I wondered whether Mama would be interested in doing fieldwork on the lives of aunties like Aunty M, who came from Indonesia and the Philippines. The un-superior servants. Could they be feminists if they’d got married?

  ‘Do you think they really were superior to the maids we have now?’

  ‘No,’ Mama shrugged. ‘That’s nonsense. When people look back they like to think everything was better in the past. They apply a rose-coloured filter. Like, they see it as an Instagram shot. I’m sure they weren’t much different. People these days like to complain.’

  I thought about the aunties I knew, the ones who’d become my friends. They were, most of them, hardworking. ‘I think so too.’ I said. ‘But maybe there was one difference.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The aunties now, they usually have a family, children back home. They send all their money there.’

  ‘Well observed,’ said Mama. ‘You’ll make a good field worker one day. You’re right, their loyalty is torn between their job and their families. They’re never fully here; their hearts are still in their home countries. They remain foreigners, whereas Ah Feng eventually became a Singaporean.’

  I pondered that for a while, wondering what that meant for someone like Dad, whose heart, I hoped, was here with us. Would he eventually become a real Singaporean? But there was another question I wanted to ask Mama first.

  ‘You said that Ah Feng picked who she worked for. That means she had a choice. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes, she did,’ said Mama. ‘In China, in the old days, they had mui tsai, bondmaids. They were women who were owned by their employers like – well, like slaves, I suppose. Parents were so poor that they sold their children when they couldn’t feed them. Little girls as young as five or six were brought up as housemaids in rich families. Bondmaids like that couldn’t leave their employers, not as a free woman like Ah Feng could. I believe some bondmaids existed in Singapore too, but thankfully that type of thing isn’t allowed these days.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ I said. ‘It’s a bit the same for the aunties. They have no money to feed their children, but instead of selling them, they leave them behind. And they can’t quit their job either.’

  Mama looked surprised. ‘Where did you get that idea? What nonsense. MOM has plenty of rules in place to protect the domestic helpers these days.’

  I couldn’t give away more about my work with Aunty M and the aunties, so I just shrugged. I didn’t say what I thought, which was that those rules might be there, but did anyone check whether employers stuck to them? Like when my parents said, ‘Do your homework,’ and never checked whether I did it or not. So I might be in a lot of trouble at school, and they’d never know until a teacher called them.

  Mama handed me the paper. ‘Here, why don’t you read the rest if you like? It might be a bit difficult for you still, but I’m happy to explain more. But don’t lose it. It’s the only copy.’

  I tried reading the report, but there were so many things I didn’t understand that I didn’t even know what questions to ask Mama. I hadn’t had a conversation like this with her since I couldn’t remember when. But somehow it had fallen flat when we started talking about the aunties of today.

  How were they different? Were they less interesting? The things Mama had told me mixed with what I’d learned from Aunty M, and not all of it added up. The good feeling I’d had during our talk faded away. I didn’t want to become a feminist. I wanted my mother to build me a yellow house, like the one Aunty M would build for Nurul; or even better, like PoPo’s Blue House.

  But Mama didn’t care what I wanted. But honey, we have a house! Isn’t this a beautiful condo? I could already hear her reply. And then she’d say something about financial independence being more important than a house. Would we ever understand each other? But if feminism was what it took for me to get Mama back, perhaps I needed to make an effort.

  I showed the paper to Aunty M but she barely looked at it. ‘Superior servants. Pah! The Chinese look down their noses at everyone else.’

  ‘Hey, I’m part Chinese,’ I reminded her.

  She looked at me without a smile.

  23

  Just as I was starting to feel accepted by the aunties, something happened that changed everything. It started at the playground. Maricel was telling us about her friend Ronalyn, who was in trouble.

  ‘What’s the trouble?’ Aunty M asked.

  Maricel gently kicked Toy-toy, who was biting her toes. ‘Shoo, Toy-toy. Aunty’s talking.

  ‘The trouble is Ah Gong,’ said Maricel. ‘When Ronalyn started working there, the ma’am, Ah Gong’s daughter, already said that Ah Gong was naughty. That’s why they had to let the last maid go, she said. Ronalyn needed the job. Her son has medical problems, so she took the job anyway. Ah Gong was eighty-four. How naughty could he be, she thought. But now she is late.’

  I was about to ask what she was late for, when Aunty M exclaimed ‘Maricel!’

  ‘What?’

  Aunty M pointed at me with the top of her head. Maricel covered her mouth with her fingers.

  ‘Go play at the swing, Maya,’ Aunty M said.

  ‘I don’t want to. I want to sit here,’ I sulked.

  Aunty M knotted together her brows like Mama usually did. I’d tried raising my brows like that on Chloe, but it didn’t work. It worked when Aunty M did it to me, though, and I pottered to the swings, brooding.


  Why didn’t they trust me? Why couldn’t I hear about a naughty old man? I tried to listen in, but every time I approached the benches – from the back, from the side, on my tippy toes – they stopped and changed the subject. I felt the pitter patter of tiny cockroach feet in my stomach again. It was something I hadn’t felt for a long time, and the only way to squash it was by going to the swings and swinging as high as I could.

  When we got home, I asked Aunty M why I couldn’t hear the story of naughty Ah Gong.

  ‘Sayang,’ she said, ‘If your mother found out about you listening to a story like that, she would fire me on the spot. And she would be absolutely right. You are ten. You are too young.’

  I left to sulk. I knew Aunty M had visited Ronalyn without me when I came home from school the next afternoon. She must have taken Chloe, so why was that ok? Chloe, who wasn’t even two!

  I could tell Aunty M wasn’t going to tell me anything, so I thought of visiting Win. I hadn’t been to see her in a while. But something held me back, made me stay in and do homework instead. I sat there at the dinner table twiddling my fingers, dawdling, pretending to read. When Aunty M’s phone rang and she took it into her room, she left the door ajar. I snuck over and crouched in front of it.

  I was in luck: it was Maricel on the phone, and Aunty M was giving her a full update on her visit that morning. She’d done some sort of test. False alarm, it turned out, and Aunty M sounded relieved.

  ‘I’m happy for her. It saves her a lot of trouble. She would have lost the job if MOM found out.’

  Found out what? That Ah Gong was naughty? That Ronalyn was late? How could you be just late? You had to be late for something. Was Ah Gong angry that Ronalyn brought him his porridge late?

  Aunty M’s hushed yet excited tone pointed to something different, and I started to get a hunch about what was going on. Ronalyn’s problems must have to do with that. With it. Something I had little clue about yet.

  ‘She said she wanted to go to the police if it had been positive. But now, I don’t know if she will.’

  How did the police come into it? Into it?

  Aunty M was quiet for a while. Maricel must have been talking.

  ‘Yes. I know. They will say that. Ugh. Ah Gong is wrinkly and old. It makes me sick.’

  Another silence.

  ‘A charge will never stick. Not without proof of violence.’

  Aunty M hmm-ed in response to Maricel. Then, ‘No, she didn’t fight. She was changing his bed. He was sitting in a chair, and he just grabbed her from behind. Yes, she is stronger, but she did not want to make trouble. She has her son, remember, and doctor’s bills. She thought it would just be kissing.’

  Maricel shouted so hard on the other side I could hear it, but not what she was talking about.

  ‘She kept silent first, when he kissed her cheek. Then her mouth. She still kept silent. Then he went too far.’

  More noise from Maricel. How far did Ah Gong go?

  ‘She still kept silent. Until she freaked out when she was late. He told her he was too old for that, that it wasn’t him. But she had not seen her husband in over a year…Yes…Of course, she panicked…She’s asking whether she should still call the police.’

  Chloe walked towards me, stretching her hands. I put my finger to my lips. I wobbled, and almost tipped against the door. Inside, Aunty M talked on.

  ‘She would have lost the job anyway. They would have found out at the medical and sent her back. Now, she doesn’t know what to do. It hasn’t happened again, no.’

  Chloe toddled up noisily. I wasn’t sure why I was still listening. I could feel this Ah Gong’s smelly lips and prickly whiskers on my own cheek. It made me gag. But my feet stayed glued to the floor.

  Aunty M was now debating with Maricel what Ronalyn should do. Leave the family, said Aunty M. It seemed Maricel disagreed.

  ‘Yes, I know he should be in jail, but that’s not going to happen, is it? She weighs twice as much as he does. He is eighty-four. She is never going to convince a police officer she could not have fought him off. She has been stupid. Very, very stupid. She needs to go home.’

  I couldn’t listen any longer. My feet had fallen asleep and my head spun. I toppled over, crashing in front of Chloe on the floor.

  Aunty M rushed out of the room. ‘What are you doing here? How long have you been here?’

  ‘Chloe and I were just playing, I didn’t know you were in there,’ I lied unconvincingly.

  Aunty M said into the phone, ‘I need to go now. I’ll call you tonight.’ She turned to me, ‘Are you sure? You ok?’

  I picked up Chloe and took her to the Duplo blocks. ‘Sure.’

  If Aunty M would lose her job if Mama found out about me being involved in this, whatever it was, I’d have to be ok. So I put on an ok face.

  Chloe and I built a tower; that is, I built it and she kept pushing it over as soon as it was as tall as she was. I tried hard not to think about what I’d heard. Whenever I did, a wave of panic rolled up inside me. Usually when we encountered something terrible, Aunty M and I would deal with it together, and it would feel ok. Now I was alone. I had no idea what to do with the information I’d just heard, half of which I didn’t understand, and the part I did understand made me feel sick. I was supposed to do nothing, know nothing, and this helplessness made me feel very, very scared. When Chloe and I had finished playing, I tried to bury the whole thing deeply under all the colourful blocks in the box.

  The next day, Aunty M took Chloe to the playground. I stayed home, claiming homework and tiredness. The truth was that I couldn’t bear to be around the aunties and risk hearing another word about Ronalyn. The prickly whiskers of Ah Gong tickled as badly on my cheeks as the cockroach feet had, first on my tongue, and now in my stomach. The cases of the aunties, the helpdesk, Aunty M herself – they had been my escape from Jenny, Meena, from my unhappiness at school, the Mamamonster. But my safe place now proved not that safe after all.

  I sat on my bed, trying to read, but I felt so nauseous I had to run to the toilet and vomit until I was completely empty. I must have fallen asleep afterwards, because Aunty M woke me, asking how I was feeling and whether I was well enough for dinner. I wasn’t, and I slept on until Mama woke me for breakfast in the morning. She was kind, and kept talking about a stomach bug going round, and said that I should stay home from school that day.

  I felt lonelier than I ever had. I had no friends at school and none at home either. I had to avoid Mama in case I became weak and told her everything, and got Aunty M in trouble. Who could I talk to now about the things that upset me? I lay in bed trying to ignore the wriggle of the cockroach and the tickling of the whiskers. It took a few sleepless evenings until the cockroach won out, and Ronalyn’s story sunk out of sight. The cockroach, my only friend now, guarded the story like a fierce little dragon. The one thing that managed to get past him was a question that had surfaced in my mind: could feminism help Ronalyn?

  24

  Suddenly, fate decided I needed a break: I got a friend.

  In international school, kids came and went all the time, and your best friend could move out any day. Or move in. Her real name was Cathelijne, but no one could pronounce that. Our teacher called her Cathlyn, which was the closest she could get without breaking her tongue, she said. Her parents called her Lijn, which sounded like line to me, odd but cute, and she said I should call her Cat. She said she liked being a different person to different people.

  Cat blew me away. To start with, her names were cool and original. Not like Maya. Maya, as Dad had explained once, was international, not really linked to any country. Perfect for someone like me, who came from nowhere. I hated it. I’d once googled the meaning: it was illusion. I wasn’t sure what illusion meant, so I googled that word too. Many synonyms came up, amongst them phantom, and figment of the imagination. That really helped my sense of self.

  Cat’s family obviously didn’t care about whether everyone would be able to spell or pronounce
her name. Her last name I could never remember. It was a jumble of unintelligible letters and she laughed if anyone tried to pronounce it. ‘Just call me Jones. Cat Jones. I am going to find a man named Jones to marry

  when I grow up.’

  Cat was amazing. She was Dutch but had never lived in the Netherlands, the same country Opa was from. Cat didn’t need to have a country to belong to; she seemed to belong everywhere. She’d lived in a village in Borneo before moving to Singapore. Her dad was an expert on monkeys with exceptionally big noses.

  On her first day at school, Cat had come up to me and bluntly said: ‘Why do they call you Cockroach?’

  At first, I felt like a nest of baby cockroaches had hatched in my stomach. They crawled up my throat and filled my mouth so I couldn’t speak. But Cat looked at me in such a way that I spat them all out. And I told her. Just like that.

  She was cool about it. Cat told me that lots of people ate insects. In the jungle they ate special ants to get vitamin C. She said they tasted nice, a bit fruity, like orange.

  ‘Did you try them?’ I asked, impressed.

  ‘Of course. Insects are protein. And vitamins. I have eaten,’ she counted on the fingers of her left hand, ‘ants, mealworms, snails, flying termites, and crickets. But I’ve never had cockroach.’

  She said it as if she was in awe of me.

  Cat went on: ‘Grasshoppers are the best. If you deep fry them, they get crunchy, and very, very lekker.’

  ‘Lecker?’

  ‘Delicious, I mean. I’ve had them a few times. In Vietnam they put them on a stick and grill them.’

  ‘Grasshopper satay.’ We both giggled. ‘Did your parents know? Did they let you?’

  ‘Yes, it was my mum’s idea. She’s really into that sort of thing. Alternative sources of protein, saving the world. She doesn’t eat meat. But she still ate the grasshoppers. We had a scorpion once too. It was covered in chocolate, but it still tasted weird.’